Galar's Most Popular Couple
by Maia the Writer
Summary: Sarah Char and Leon Best are blackmailed by Oleana to be Galar's most popular "couple" in order to garner the Gym Challenge more attention. They barely know each other, but are still expected to be in "love." A snow storm and the events of the Gym Challenge though change the nature of their relationship as they get to know each other better.
1. Prologue - Being a Couple

Prologue

Sarah sighed as she looked over the crowd from the balcony. She was at one of Chairman Rose's dinner parties for international guests coming for the start of the Galar Gym Challenge. She felt weird being in such a formal dress, feeling more comfortable in slacks and a dress shirt which was her usual outfit when she worked at a newspaper company.

Someone tapped her shoulder and she turned around to find Leon, the current undefeated champion of Galar, who was giving her a drink.

"Thank you." she said.

"Don't mention it." said Leon flatly, took a sip of his drink and turned away from her to face the crowd.

Sarah looked at the crowd again and found amongst the sea of people Oleana, Chairman Rose's right hand woman, who glared at them.

That's right they are supposed to be pretending to be Galar's most popular couple.

Sarah leaned in and gave Leon a kiss on the check, and Leon turned to her with a smile that Sarah knew didn't reflect how he actual felt about her.

"Oh, look at that, young love." commented someone behind them while their companion agreed with them wholeheartedly.

More like a contract that we were forced into, thought Sarah.

But as long as she and Leon acted well enough to garner comments like that everything would be fine.


	2. Taking a Break

**Chapter 1- Taking a Break**

When Sarah was younger, she liked to list off the jobs she wanted to have when she became an adult. Her answers would change often. She went from wanting to be a nurse, to wanting to become a Pokémon trainer, to an author and so many other occupations. For a while when she was ten, she wanted to be an actress. One that would do musicals at least. Funny how she was now essentially contracted to be one, but no one would truly congratulate her unless it was Oleana, the person who actually wrote the contract.

"Both are you are doing so well." said Oleana with a cold smile.

Sarah and Leon were called into Oleana's office at Rose Tower to meet with her. On Oleana's calendar this was called a "Planning Meeting". To Sarah, it was a check-up to see if the fake couple's acting was convincing to everyone in Galar.

"Chairman Rose and I are pleased with your performance at the party last week. We even got approached by several famous figures to comment how nice it was to see Leon with a lovely girlfriend."

Performance. That's was what her and Leon's relationship was, performance.

Sometimes Sarah wondered what it would have been like to have actually gotten to know Leon without a contract. Would she and Leon have actually become friends? Would they have fallen in love and wanted to date each other? Who knows?

"We have decided to let you two off the next two weeks to do what you want. You both need to prepare for the opening ceremonies." said Oleana.

Leon just nodded while Sarah felt nervous. As part of the contract, Sarah went from an intern at Galar's regional newspaper to becoming a new face amongst the newscasters for the Gym Challenge. It made Sarah feel a little sick that this was only because Oleana threaten her with closing every journalist job to her if she did not agree to this. Still, Sarah hoped that she could prove herself as someone actually capable of being a newscaster. When the contract was over Sarah would probably be expected to go back to an intern position again and think herself lucky that her relationship status granted her a unique opportunity. She hoped that she would get more job opportunities that would pop up after the end of the gym challenge rather than go back to the position of a glorified errand girl.

"Now, that is all." said Oleana, waving them off dismissively.

Leon frowned while Sarah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She hated that women.

Once they got outside Oleana's office, Leon turned to Sarah and asked her if she was alright. Sarah was surprised that Leon was actually talking to her. No one was around to see it so that meant he was genuine. Leon must have taken her surprise as embarrassment before he quickly added,

"You seemed to be a bit nervous once Oleana mentioned the opening ceremonies."

Sarah nodded and walked towards the elevators. She wasn't sure about opening her heart up to her fake boyfriend at that moment. Leon walked quickly to catch up to her.

"Look, I sometimes get nervous too," he said, "Like what if something happens during the exhibition match, like I lose, or my cape catches on fire."

For some reason, when Sarah imagined Leon going barmy over a burning cape, it caused her to laugh which left Leon really puzzled.

"Sorry," said Sarah, "But it's absolutely mad that a burning cape and losing a match are at the same level of embarrassing moments."

Leon gave her a smile.

"Well, for what it's worth, my cape has never caught on fire and I'm undefeated. I just remind myself of the good things that can happen. That way, my nerves don't get in the way."

Sarah nodded and said, "Okay, I will keep that in mind."

Leon then grinned at her and said, "Now that's better."

The elevator doors opened up and they went in. As they were heading down, Leon and Sarah were able to make small talk about what they were going to do the rest of the day. By the time that they got outside, Sarah was actually a little sad to see him go. She hoped that their actual first conversation could prove that they could at least be tolerable with each other.

* * *

It turned out that Sarah and Leon were going to spend a lot of time together for their two-week break. They didn't even plan it, but it seemed that Arceus just wanted them to spend so much time together.

Sarah decided to go traveling by foot back to her hometown of Circhester. She could have easily taken a Corviknight taxi or the train back, but she wanted to backpack it. Backpacking through the wild was something that she loved to do but hadn't in the past few months.

When she left Wyndon and went over the hill to get to route 10, she smiled as the wind grew colder and everything was soon covered with snow. That's something she had missed about her hometown, how much it snowed. Sarah felt more at home during the winter season than any other. She let out her Glacion which had the name of Layla out of her Pokéball. Layla cried out happily and ran through the snow. She enjoyed being back in her element. Sarah smiled and after she called Layla back to her, they continued to travel on Route 10.

It was a few hours later that Sarah decided to camp out in a hollowed-out cave. It was a shelter from the snowstorm that was happening. After she checked that no Abomasnow or Beartic were lurking around, she began to set up camp and let her Pokémon out. Besides Layla, Sarah had her own Corviknight named Cornelius, a female Indeedee named Kiki and a Cubchoo and a Snom she decided to catch. She wasn't planning on catching any Pokémon, but that little bear ran to her, pleading with its big eyes to go with Sarah. Then Sarah saw a Snom coming for them too and the Cubchoo encouraged its snow worm friend along. Sarah was glad she had some Quick Balls on hand so that she didn't have to carry the two Pokémon for the next hour. She went to the train station that was by the route to buy some more food supplies and blankets, and then went to find shelter.

Sarah had just finished starting the fire when Layla, Cornelius and Kiki began to make noises and became defensive, indicating to Sarah that someone was near. The Cubchoo hid behind Sarah, while the Snom, who was oblivious to the fear of the unknown, continued to eat Oran berries. Sarah saw through the falling snow a silhouette of a human come closer, until she recognized who it was.

"Leon?"

"Sarah?"

Then Leon took another step which caused him to wince. And then within the next second, he collapsed to the ground.


	3. Shelter from the Storm

**Chapter 3**

"Leon!" cried Sarah.

Sarah rushed over to him and knelt beside him. Leon rolled from his side and onto his back. His eyes were shut and Sarah could see him wincing from pain. He opened his eyes and looked up at Sarah, still shocked that he found her here. He was breathing heavily and looked exhausted, his face covered in snowflakes.

"Kiki!" said Sarah, "Help me bring Leon closer to the fire."

Kiki ran over to Sarah. Before Sarah or Kiki could lift up Leon, a cry came from something wrapped in his champion cape that he held close to his chest.

"Here," said Leon, sounding like he recently got the wind knocked out of him, "Make sure it's okay."

Sarah carefully grabbed the bundle and opened it a bit to reveal what was inside it. It was a small Grookey, an extremely rare Grass-type Pokémon. It seemed to have been through a lot with multiple scratches. The Grookey let out soft cries in a troubled sleep.

"Kiki," said Sarah, "Take this Grookey and heal him. Make sure to keep him warm and feed him when he wakes."

"Dee!" replied Kiki, who took the sleeping Grookey and went to get supplies from Sarah's pack.

"Leon, I'm going to drag you closer to the fire and then we check on to see how you are doing. Okay?" said Sarah

"Okay," said Leon weakly, his eyes fluttering as he attempted to stay awake.

Sarah hooked her arms around his arms and began to slowly pull Leon closer to the fire. He was quite heavy, but Sarah managed to pull Leon into the cave and closer to the fire. She set him down gently and went to add more wood to the fire. When she turned back to Leon, he was slowly closing his eyes.

"Leon!" shouted Sarah who came over to him and grabbed his arms to shake him awake.

"Ow!" hissed Leon, who moved Sarah's arms away from where she touched him.

"Sorry." said Sarah, "I just didn't want you to fall asleep. I would not be able to know how to help you if you are unconscious."

"Thanks." said Leon coughing in between his words, "I think I broke my ankle and I got punched by Abomnasnow."

Sarah sighed and wondered what in the world Leon was thinking and how he ended up off of Route 10 with an injured Grookey. Why did he put himself in a situation with punching Pokémon? Sarah bitterly thought that maybe the undefeated champion title had gone to his head.

"Leon, I think it might be best to rest your voice for now," said Sarah.

"Okay," said Leon after he finished his cough that lasted for a couple of seconds, "But take care of Charizard."

Leon tried to sit up, but he shouted in pain, holding his right side. Sarah came close to him and eased him back down so he could lie on the ground. She saw that he only had three Pokéballs with him and decided to let all the Pokémon out. The first was an Aegislash, then a Seismitoad and then Charizard. Charizard was knocked out and sprawled out over the cave. The Aegislash screeched and went into Shield Form, eyeing everything warily. The Seismitoad had a furious expression on its face and started to vibrate, shaking the cave. Cornelius let out a cry of shock, its red eyes glinting in the firelight, ready to strike. Cubchoo cried and went to hide behind Sarah's bag. Kiki was startled but stood her ground, holding the Grookey protectively and Snom was so shocked that he spewed his chewed-up berries accidentally into the fire which immediately burned into crisps.

"Stop!" shouted Sarah.

All the Pokémon, minus the fainted Charizard turned towards her and Leon who was still wincing from the pain he felt when he tried to sit up. Seismitoad stopped vibrating and ran over to Leon along with Aegislah. They both looked very worried at the pain Leon was in. The rest of Sarah's Pokémon relaxed and were not as scared as they went back to focusing on the serious situation. Leon tried to say something to his two concerned Pokémon, but coughed violently, making his Pokémon more worried.

"I got this Leon." said Sarah, "Just take slow and deep breaths, okay?"

Leon responded with following Sarah's advice on breathing. Sarah soon calmed down Leon's Pokémon and gave them the assignment of protecting the cave along with her Corviknight which they agreed to do immediately. Now she could focus on helping Charizard and Leon. Sarah then got her bag and quickly went over to the Charizard. She knew that Charizard was Leon's favorite child and would refuse care unless his Pokémon son got it first. Her Cubchoo rushed after Sarh and hugged her leg, making it hard to walk.

"Look," said Sarah, kneeling down in order to be at the same eye level of the Cubchoo, "You can stay with me, but you need to know that you should stay quiet so that I can help Charizard here. Okay?"

Cubchoo nodded and sniffed causing its snot to go in and out of its nose. Sarah smiled at the cute ice bear, even though it had a perpetually runny nose. Sarah then took a deep breath and focused on what she had to do. She got to work on taking care of Charizard. She healed all the ice burns and bandaged the Charizard's cuts. The last thing she did was to give it a revive so that it would have some energy when it waked up. She went over back to Leon, with Cubchoo following after her. She saw that Kiki was already there giving Leon some water from her canister while simultaneously cradling the sleeping Grookey in one of her arms. Sarah thanked her Pokémon for helping with Leon. She chuckled as Kiki tucked the Champion of Galar in with a blanket and gave him a light boop on the nose. Even Leon gave Kiki a small smile and thanked her.

"I'm going to figure out why you collapsed when taking a step into the cave, then check for bruises and hope there's nothing broken," said Sarah

Leon nodded and started to drift off, but Kiki was quick to boop his nose to startle him back awake.

It turned out that Leon had multiple bruises on his arm, a big nasty bruise on his right side and a sprained ankle. Sarah sent a note with Cornelius to the Pokémon Center in Wyndon to explain the situation and to get help in bringing Leon back home. She was not a nurse, but she knew that Leon was not in the physical condition to travel back on foot.

* * *

Sarah found herself at the crack of dawn taking care of her Cubchoo, Snom and the Grookey who were awake and were chatting to each other. Sarah was glad that although the Grookey's scratches had not disappeared, it had a happy, easy-going nature and took well to everyone. Layla was their protective older sister, making sure the babies were not getting too close to the dying fire. Kiki was preparing a small breakfast for everyone, granola with berries. Leon's Charizard was awake but sat by Leon who was peacefully sleeping. Every minute or so Charizard would check to make sure Leon was breathing. Aegislash and Sesmitoad were still guarding the cave, but one of them every few minutes would turn around and talk with Charizard, probably to get the status of how Leon was doing.

Sarah walked up to the mouth of the cave and told Aegislash and Sesmitoad they were relieved of guarding the entrance and that they could go back inside. The two Pokémon agreed and went to Leon. The snowstorm was long gone, and Sarah watched the beginning of dawn unfold as the sky slowly turned from a dark purple to a mixture of pink and orange. It had been two hours since she sent Cornelius. She would have sent him earlier, but the storm was still happening throughout the night and while Cornelius was strong, ice could damage those who were not ice types after long exposure in the snow. Even though she had Layla, Sarah was not sure if Layla could find the main route as they went off it to find this cave in the first place. Sarah hoped that someone was awake at the Pokémon Center in Wyndon to help them and had read the letter tied around Cornelius's neck.

She then heard the cry of her Corviknight, who flapped his wings at a steady pace towards the cave. It was followed by the bark of another Pokémon. Sarah saw two people with snow sleds each led by a Boltund coming towards the cave. Sarah called out to Cornelius, encouraging him to finish strong. Corviknight reached her quickly but circled around outside until the rescuers stopped and waved towards Sarah. Sarah waved back at them and Cornelius landed, its chest puffing up and down from the long trek. He cawed triumphantly as if to say, "I did!".

"Good job Cornelius," said Sarah, petting his head

Cornelius cooed in response. Kiki came to give him granola and berries, and a cup of water, which he munched and drank happily. Cornelius lied down to rest after the quick food and water and Sarah put him back in his Pokéball. The two-sled people came to the mouth of the cave and introduced themselves.

"Hello! We are here to take you back to Wyndon!"

The greeting came from a man that Sarah recognized to be a watt trader whose work was selling TMs, Pokéballs and other supplies to trainers in exchange for watts. He didn't have a big backpacking bag of supplies on his back and instead of the usually bright climbing attire, he had a red parka on. Another person came to stand beside him, and Sarah was surprised to see a Nurse Joy dressed in a red parka. Sarah quickly talked to them about the situation. They were shocked to realize that the Champion of Galar was there and needed their help, but they recovered from their shock quickly. Sarah then went to Leon and woke him up gently. Once he woke up, Sarah introduced Leon to their rescuers.

Leon nodded his head as the watt trader and Nurse Joy crouched down and explained to him how they were going to get him out of the cave. Sarah decided that Leon was in capable hands and went to pack up everything else. Sarah quickly put away her tent, while Kiki helped by packing the bag. Layla put out the fire with her icy breath. Sarah also put all of her and Leon's Pokémon away into their Pokéballs besides Layla and Kiki. After they finished their work, Sarah put Kiki and Layla in their Pokéballs, reassuring them that she would take care of the Grookey wrapped snugly in the Champion's cape. Sarah had tried to get Grookey into another blanket, but Grookey was attached to the Champion's cape. So, Leon was still using the blanket Kiki gave him to keep himself warm.

The Nurse Joy and the explorer helped Leon up and supported him down to one of the sleds. Sarah slowly followed after them cradling the Grookey in one arm as she carefully went down one step at a time. The Nurse Joy and the watt trader with Leon reached one of their sleds and set him down. They were about to put the flap of the sled cover over Leon when he asked for his Grookey. Soon, Sarah came with the Grookey and was ready to give it to Leon, when the Grookey's ears moved. Grookey called out in panic and he scrambled out of his Champion cape blanket. Sarah lost her hold on him as he fell to the snow and before anyone could catch him, the grass monkey darted off into the forest.

"I'll get him!" said Sarah, who brought out Layla from her Pokéball and told her to follow Grookey's scent.

Sarah only had time to throw the cape at the startled watt trader, telling him to give it to Leon before racing after Layla. Sarah was able to keep up with Layla and they were able to find the Grookey within a few minutes. Grookey comforted a distressed Sobble who was crying and rubbing the left part of his head where a big purple bruise was.

Sarah could not believe that Grookey knew this Sobble as usually young Grookey and Sobble didn't interact much. Sobble were solitary unless being nursed by their mothers and Grookey had troops that Pokémon of the Grookey evolution line gathered in. Sarah was not sure what to do, but then Grookey used the stick in his hand to point to Sarah and shrieked something that Sarah would consider it as him saying something positive about her. The Sobble became mollified and looked at Sarah in awe. Sarah crouched down to be more eye level with the Sobble who crawled slowly towards her, his eyes wide and scared, but still putting its feet forward. Sarah then held out her arms, which Grookey jumped into and Sobble hesitantly climbed into them.

"Don't worry." said Sarah, "I can help with the pain you are feeling right now. It will take a few minutes, but you will be healed."

Sobble squeaked and Sarah took that as a "thank you." It took longer to walk back, but they finally managed to come back. Sarah could hear the voices of the watt trader and Nurse Joy talking quickly to Leon as she got closer to the sleds. The Nurse Joy spotted Sarah, her face relieved as she said, "Look! She's back!"

"Sarah!" called Leon who then began coughing profusely.

The Nurse Joy was quick to get supplies from a bag attached to the back of the sled and gave a syrup to Leon to help ease the coughing.

"I got them Leon!" cried Sarah, as she tried to quickly walk through the snow while carrying two Pokémon in her arms.

She got to Leon and knelt down to show him the Grookey and the Sobble.

"I don't remember rescuing a Sobble too," said Leon.

"You didn't," said Sarah, "Grookey heard its cries and ran to comfort it. I think the Sobble and the Grookey knew each other because they seemed to be good friends."

Leon just nodded, taking the information in. Sarah asked Nurse Joy if she had anything for the Sobble's bruise on his head. Nurse Joy quickly got a special kind of heal potion and sprayed it on the Sobble's head which squealed in shock, but soon calmed down once the bruise faded away.

"Could I hold the Grookey while you hold the Sobble?" asked Leon.

Grookey eagerly went into Leon's arms, but it caused Sobble to whimper at being separated from his friend. Grookey shouted encouragingly at Sobble who then took a few deep breaths and snuggled in Sarah's arms. Sarah lightly stroked its head and the Sobble sighed in contentment. Once Sarah, the Sobble and her bag were situated in the other sled along with Leon and the Grookey in their sled, the Boltunds were commanded to run and soon they were on the move. Sarah found herself smiling at seeing the forest going past her at a fast pace, despite the past twelve hours being exhausting. She watched as Layla ran alongside the Bolthunds, making happy noises to run at such a speed in the snow. Soon the warmth of the sled and the smooth ride, caused Sarah to fall asleep along with the Sobble.

**A/N: So, what do you all think? I hope you all liked the addition of Grookey and Sobble! I wondered how Leon got the starter Pokémon in the game, so I thought of this. Scorbunny will be appearing shortly in two chapters and we will find out later how they ended up where they were. Also, we will learn more about what exactly happened with Leon and Charizard in the next chapter. I also started writing a side story to this so that I could understand what is happening with Leon and let me say, you do not want to upset Abomnasnow.**


	4. Protect the Baby Pokemon

**Chapter 4**

The Pokémon Center was open and fully staffed despite it being early in the morning. The Nurse Joys quickly got to work healing all of the Pokémon and the Champion himself. It turned out that Leon had a sprained ankle and that he had a cracked rib that resulted from the Abomasnow that attacked at him as he was saving a Grookey from getting mauled by Sneasels.

Sarah was finally able to find out about what happened when one of the Nurse Joys asked Leon questions as they were bandaging Leon's ankle. On the day Sarah decided to leave town, Leon decided that he wanted to try out a new fire TM with Charizard but thought it best to do it in the snowy woods of Route 10 to reduce chances for a fire to start. It was during the middle of that fire move that they heard shrieks of Pokémon fighting. Charizard immediately flew to the noise with Leon following behind. That's when they found a Grookey waving his stick, scratches all over his arms and his chest. The Grookey was attempting to defend himself against the Sneasels.

Charizard though quickly came to the Grookey's rescue and decided to use his new fire move to scare the Sneasels off. Unfortunately, it caused the ire of some Abomnasnow who started to beat up Charizard and Leon. Luckily, Leon grabbed the Grookey and jumped onto to Charizard's back who flew out of the fray. They were able to get some distance, but Charizard was weak from battle and soon fainted. Leon was hopelessly lost in the middle of the forest in a snowstorm. Leon's Rotom Phone was not working, and he didn't want to bring the rest of his Pokémon out in fear of what would happen to them if they were lost or frostbitten. He ended up wandering around in the snowstorm trying to find civilization until he spotted a fire from a cave. It was the one Sarah was in. Just when he entered the cave, he stepped funny on the cave floor and sprained his ankle.

Sarah was glad that Leon got the professional care he needed, and his voice was sounding less winded and gravelly. The nurse told them that she would be back shortly to talk to her supervisor and left Sarah and Leon alone in the room. An awkward silence fell in between them. Sarah felt like she needed to say something but was not sure what exactly what to say. Grookey, who was now looking much better after being cared for by the nurses, jumped onto Leon's bed. He tapped his stick gently on the blanket to get Leon's attention.

"Hello there," said Leon

Grookey came closer to Leon so that Leon could pet him and scratch his back. Soon Sobble, who was still fine despite receiving a concussion, came plodding over to the bed and climbed up on the other side, to lie down and snuggle in the blankets. Sarah decided to come close to Leon's hospital bed, where Leon's free hand took hers. Sarah blushed as he held her hand and looked at Leon's face who looked back at her with an emotion she had not seen before when he looked at her.

"Sarah," said Leon, "Thank you. Without you, I would be dead."

Sarah looked at Leon, realizing that the gratitude he was expressing was sincere.

"Leon." said Sarah, "I'm glad that you're still here."

Sarah hoped that Leon truly knew that. It was so scary to see him so beaten up while they waited out a snowstorm. She couldn't sleep during the night as she was concerned about his health. He may have just barely started being polite and friendly to her, but she didn't want to see him dead.

Leon opened his mouth to say something when the door opened letting in the nurse and supervisor. The supervisor looked at their held hands, which caused Sarah to quickly draw her hand away. The supervisor smirked.

"Sorry to interrupt your little tête-à-tête," said the supervisor, "but you will be happy to hear this. You're free to go."

* * *

It turns out that while they were free to go, they could not get out of the Pokémon Center. The press was pressed up against the doors, trying to get a glimpse of the Champion who was brought in that morning by a sled rescue team. The Nurse Joy at the front desk was smart to lock the doors, but that meant it would be impossible to exit the building unless they snuck out of the back. The problem was they could not sneak Leon out on crutches as it will garner the attention of people of the street. Sarah wanted to groan at the timing of everything. The press certainly never sleeps, and all that Sarah wanted to do was go back to her flat and sleep for quite a while.

Leon decided that it was best to get a car from Chairman Rose. Sarah didn't want to involve the Chairman as that would probably mean a visit from the Chairman and his evil secretary to get the story of what happened to Leon, but there was no other option unless they wanted the press to squash them alive. A few minutes after Leon made his call, the noise of the press outside died down and they heard a group of people come down the hallway into the room Leon was in. At first, Sarah mistook the people that had come from them to be the ones who worked for the Gym League. She then saw the black sunglasses and the Macro Cosmos shirts and realized that they were _definitely_ going to get a check-up interview from Chairman Rose himself today. The four Macro Cosmos workers talked with the Nurse Joy and her supervisor about what was going on. Soon everyone was staring at Leon, who was seated on the edge of his bed, crutches out, and ready to leave.

"Mr. Best," said one of the workers, a tall man who was twice the size of Leon, "We are here to escort you back home. A car is outside the Pokemon Center and will take you back to your flat."

Leon nods and stands on his foot that was not the one with the sprained ankle and begins to walk towards the man on his crutches. Grookey and Sobble ran after Leon. Sarah went to follow but was stopped by another worker.

"Sorry Ms. Char, but we are giving a ride to Mr. Best. Chairman Rose appreciates you helping him."

Sarah stared at her. She then realized that Leon probably wanted to have his own space.

"Okay. I will just wait here then." said Sarah, "At least until the crowd disappears so that I can go to my flat."

The Macro Cosmos worker nodded, and Sarah was about to ask one of the Nurse Joys about a back exit when Leon spoke.

"No. She is coming with me." said Leon, who shuffled around to turn towards Sarah, "She's my girlfriend after all."

The nurse and the supervisor gasped and looked back and forth at Leon and Sarah. They had a lot of joy in their faces. Sarah had seen this before at planned events whenever people saw them "together", but this was at a room in the Pokémon Center with the two nurses who caught them holding hands. Sarah felt a little awkward in how these two women were staring at them. Sarah was also trying to figure out Leon's logic. Besides the time he found the cave she was in, they never spent time outside of planned events.

"But what about the Grookey and Sobble?" asked Sarah, "I don't think they are ready for crowds of humans. Maybe I can take them back to my flat instead."

"We can handle it." said one of the other Macro Cosmos workers reaching for a Pokéball on his belt.

Grookey screeched and ran to the worker. Next, the Grookey jumped in the air and thwacked in his hand, the Pokéball rolling away underneath the bed.

"Ow!" screamed the worker, "You son of a—"

Sobble then started to cry before the curse could finish, causing everyone to cry as its tears had the effect of one hundred cut onions. Sarah somehow through her tears knelt on the ground, gently picked up the Sobble and cradled him in her arms. She reassured the Sobble with soothing words and sounds until Sobble stopped crying. At some point, as she was comforting Sobble, Grookey came to her side and started tapping the ground, which distracted Sobble to stop his tears. Everyone soon stopped crying.

"Also, we found these two baby Pokémon abandoned in the forest off of Route 10," said Leon still blinking away some tears, "Sarah and I are taking care of them since they were found alone far from their natural habitats. They have been traumatized enough for one day, I don't think they could handle being in a Pokéball."

The Macro Cosmos workers began grumbling about how wild these Pokémon were.

"This is preposterous Mr. Best!" said one of the workers, "What would the Chairman think?"

Leon glared at her and was about to say something when Sarah spoke up.

"Look, I sure the Chairman would support us taken care of these abandoned Pokémon," said Sarah.

Everyone turned to Sarah, varying from looks of frustration (Macro Cosmos workers), curiosity (Grookey, Sobble, and the nurses) and surprise (Leon). Sarah then focused on the Macro Cosmos workers. She didn't like confrontation, but she hated to see these babies get treated badly.

"Chairman Rose is one of the biggest supporters of making sure that Pokémon are taken care of. Especially since Corsolas went from being water type to ghost type due to climate change. He is always talking about taking the initiative to help Pokémon who are troubled by things larger than themselves."

The leader of the Macro Cosmos workers, the big burly man, grimaced as he looked around the room, the nurses nodded their heads and Leon who was smirking at the Macro Cosmos workers.

"Fine," said the Macro Cosmos worker, "But if these two rascals get into any trouble, it is on you."

"Agreed," said Sarah with a nod.

The Macro Cosmos workers exited the room, soon followed by Leon on his crutches and Sarah with the two baby Pokémon and her backpacking bag. The nurse and her supervisor followed, whispering excitingly that they got to see the Champion's girlfriend and how pretty she was.

"How's Sobble?" asked Leon.

Sobble rolled around to look at Leon and gave a short squeal, with a smile on its face. Grookey responded with a cry, waving its stick in the air as a greeting. Leon chuckled at the grass monkey.

"Glad to see that you are doing well too."

Sarah was about to turn a corner when Leon's words stopped her.

"What you did back that was impressive. You're a champion when it comes to debate."

Sarah turned her head to look at him and saw him looking at her with a new appreciation. She felt extremely happy that Leon complimented her on something but tried to keep her cool. She was certain he was happy to be with her because she saved him from an icy death.

"Eh, climate change is an issue I follow. I am glad to remember something from my readings. It's also common knowledge as most of Rose's life story is always constantly in the media." she said.

"But you were able to convince Marcus," said Leon, "you know the big Macro Cosmos bloke, along with the rest of them. Rose does not hire idiots to work for his energy corporation, but you were able to say the right things to get him to do what you wanted."

"I guess it's true," said Sarah, wondering why Leon wanted to talk about how brilliant she was.

She was wondering if he was suggesting she manipulated Marcus, despite Leon's cheery tone at the moment. Anything to avoid the thought of, "Leon is noticing me! He must actually like me!" She shrugged off that warm feeling of finally being noticed by Leon as more than his fake girlfriend. Sarah could not lose her head and heart to a man she would only see until he became an undefeated champion the 13th time in a row and the contract had run out.

"Hey!" shouted someone down the hall.

"We're coming!" shouted Leon, "C'mon, let's go home."

The nurse and her supervisor whispered about whether or not Sarah and Leon living together but were trying to keep it on the down low. Sarah thought about how Leon's tendency to talk a lot (when he wasn't injured or being interrogated by Oleana) led him to not be careful with his words. She was not looking to see the rumors that came forth from his words. The Nurse Joys were harmless, but the internet wasn't.

Sarah and Leon turned the corner, walked out into the lobby and to the front doors. More Macro Cosmos workers had separated the press into two groups and blocked them away from each other so that there could be a path to the black car with the Macro Cosmos label embellished on the side. The moment the press saw the couple, they surged against the workers who were somehow able to stand their ground. The lights from cameras were flashing off every second. Grookey and Sobble began to get nervous at the sight of so many humans. Sobble burrowed itself into Sarah's arm and the Grookey panicked as he screeched and waved his stick like a maniac.

"Sarah," said Leon, "Take my hat off my head and put it over Grookey so that he can hide, along with Sobble."

Sarah looked skeptically at Leon but went slightly on her tiptoes to get Leon's hat off his head. Grookey immediately grabbed it and got into Sarah's arms. Sobble squirmed around a bit to face Grookey and then hid their faces within the hat. Sarah then looked at Leon with shock while Leon had a smirk on his face. Sarah narrowed her eyes at Leon. She disliked how smug he looked with his idea she considered so odd was working.

"You know I never finished school because I became champion, but I still have some brilliant ideas too," said Leon.

Leon then went to the doors which immediately slid open for him and Sarah followed quickly after him, slightly annoyed that she didn't have time to reply to him. His lighthearted teasing threw her off and she wondered if the cold weather of Route 10 did something to his head. The noise outside was deafening and it hard to know who was shouting. She had experienced the press's questions and photography when entering events with Leon as his girlfriend, but never with the sheer number of reporters in just a few feet. She looked on ahead, focused on the car. Several reporters' voices and questions seemed to stand out more than others:

"Leon! What happened to you?"

"Leon! Have your injuries disqualified you from the Gym Challenge this year?

"Sarah Char! Sarah Char! What does your cousin Gordie think of all of this?

"Sarah! Why do you have two rare Pokémon? Is collecting rare Pokémon something you and the Champion do for dates?"

Sarah was glad when she finally got to the car and could hop in first. She slid across the seat to the other side. Carefully setting the Grookey and Sobble on her lap, she took off her backpack and put it in the middle seat. Leon was helped carefully by Marco Cosmos workers into the car. Once Leon was able to sit, he straightened his back and started to do some deep breaths while rubbing the side that had his cracked rib. The side door was shut, and they were soon off.

**A/N: Another chapter and Leon's okay! I originally had Leon crying over the crazy experience he just had and then he and Sarah hugged. I realized after some reviews how unrealistic and OOC it was for him. Since then I have read more fanfics that focused on Leon and got a better sense of his character. **

**Even though I've had fun watching playthroughs of Pokémon Sword and Shield, I do agree that the games gave Leon only a few personality traits such as always talking about his Charizard and how he is the undefeated champion. It's very little to go off of when you are trying to expand his character in a fanfic. That's where fanfics come in handy. You start to notice a consensus on who Leon is and what he is like after reading some of them. I think the anime does a good job of showing his personality so far. He's willing to battle Ash and I think that it reflects his desire to help other trainers in Galar to become the strongest. I know Ash is from Kanto, but I think you get my point.**

**Also, did any of you catch an important tidbit about who Sarah is related to? It will be brought up again in a few chapters so keep that in mind.**


	5. A Scorbunny?

Once they were a few feet away from the Poke Center, it was quiet again. The Grookey and Sobble came out from under Leon's hat, looking relieved. Grookey shook his head as if to shake off any jitters and Sobble followed suite, unfortunately spewing water over Sarah.

"Ah!" cried Sarah, whose pants and jacket were unfortunately slightly soaked now.

Sobble squeaked out of surprise and looked up at Sarah with a sorry expression on its face. Sarah took a deep breath before speaking.

"You need to be careful when spraying water. Okay?"

Sobble nodded, but then they were startled by a laugh that came from Leon

"Stop!", said Sarah who turned to Leon with an angry look on her face, "It's not funny!"

Leon stopped, but couldn't hide the grin off his face. Sarah rolled her eyes at him which he didn't seem to notice or care about. Grookey then crawled over to him with Leon's hat in his hand. Leon bowed his head a bit so that Grookey could put the hat on his head. Grookey did that but then decided to turn it around so that the brim with the crown decal underneath was in the back. Leon quickly then switched it from the back to the front, but then Grookey jumped to the top of Sarah's backpack and started what would be a war of whether or not the brim would be in the front for the next five minutes. Sarah and Sobble both giggled at the sight and everyone felt much better than they did in the past few hours.

The hat battle ended once the car stopped and Grookey came back to Sarah, ready to go. Leon won the battle as he made sure his signature cap was on correctly, much to Grookey's chagrin. Sarah quickly got out of the vehicle, while Marcus got out of the driver's seat to help Leon get out. Sarah went to the pavement in front of Leon's flat building. It was very posh looking. It still was the same brick buildings that circled Wyndon Stadium, but she could tell that it had been well kept and seeing the lobby made her feel like a beach bum about to enter into a ballroom with her backpacking gear.

Leon was ready after Marcus steadied him and gave him his crutches. Marcus was going to tell Leon something, when they heard some commotion on the street, causing all to turn their heads. Three bobbies were running as fast as they could after a small Pokemon. Sarah couldn't tell what it was, it was running too fast. She noticed how it left little flames in each step which caused the bobbies to skirt around spots quickly, shoving one of their colleagues awkwardly in the process. Luckily no one was on the street as it was not a busy road, but Sarah was sure that anyone inside their flat was watching outside now.

`For the second time that day, Sarah found herself dealing with Pokémon that squirmed out of her arms until they plopped to the ground, somehow landing on all fours. Sobble and Grookey cried loudly to the blurb and the fast blurb skidded in a halt in front of them, leaving scorch marks on the pavement.

Sarah was shocked that _a third rare Pokémon_ had come into her life. Sarah recognized it as a Scorbunny and it was extremely rare as they were almost extinct due to hunts within the last century. The Scorbunny and its evolutions were making a comeback due to laws that banned hunts, but they were extremely rare and were kept in sanctuaries to preserve the species. The Scorbunny eyes widened in surprise and then cried out in delight. The Scorbunny went to hug the Grookey and Sobble. Soon the three were all crying tears, which left Leon, Sarah, and Marcus crying too despite knowing that Sobble's tears could do that to them. This was the state the three coopers found everyone in.

"Got you, you little rabbit!" shouted a bobbie.

The bobbie grabbed the Scorbunny by the scruff of its neck and the Scorbunny cried out in pain. Sobble and Grookey were furious and attacked the bobbie who yelped at the being hit by the two Pokémon. The other bobbies reached to grab Sobble and Grookey when Leon got their attention.

"Don't touch them!"

The bobbies and Pokémon stopped to look at the Champion of Galar, whose eyes narrowed at them and all could see how angry the Champion was. It was usually an expression that Sarah had only seen glimpses of beforehand, and she hoped to never be on the receiving end of Leon's anger. He could be fearsome when the moment demanded it.

"Well, they attacked our mate first!" cried a bobbie with sandy blonde hair and a shiny nameplate with the last name Lunt, pointing at the bobbie who was holding the Scorbunny still by the scruff. That bobbie, along with the other bobbie looked shocked to see Leon.

"Hello Champion Leon." said the one holding the Scorbunny.

Officer Lunt's eyes opened wide and looked at Leon in awe, but then shook his head and got himself focused on what was at hand.

"What's going on here?" asked Leon.

Sobble and Grookey growled, ready to pounce on the bobbie again. Scorbunny was frantically moving its limbs, but the bobbie held the Pokemon away from him and it couldn't do much damage.

"Well, I'm Officer Cronkie and this rabbit has been causing a ruckus throughout the neighborhood! It set so many gardens on fire and-yeow!"

The Scorbunny had bit one of Officer Cronkie's fingers, which caused the bobbie to release it. Somehow, Scorbunny landed on both feet and quickly followed Sobble and Grookey, who all ran to Sarah. Soon Sarah found herself with three Pokémon climbing on her, making noises that indicated how scared they were. She got a little off balance from this and fell on her bum. The Pokémon then dashed behind her, but Grookey was brave enough to poke his head out to let out a cry and raise his stick, taunting the bobbies.

"So, you are the reason we have been running this morning!" said the third bobbie, a young lad that looked like he barely ended secondary school with the name badge stating 'Kent', "You are a bad trainer to let your pets run all over the city like that!"

"No, she's not!" cried Leon

The bobbies were all gobsmacked as they realized Leon was defending Sarah. Officer Kent looked like he wanted to say something back, but Officer Lunt told him to hold his tongue. Officer Cronkie was clutching his finger and hissing in pain but gave Officer Kent a look which made the young bobbie shut up.

"Officer Kent is it?" asked Leon.

Officer Kent didn't even have time to nod his head before Leon spoke again.

"You have just shouted at my _girlfriend_ Officer Kent. There is no reason to shout at her before you get the full story."

The two other bobbies and Leon glared at the young bobbie, who began to cower in fear as if Leon and the two bobbies had the ability Intimidate.

"We are so sorry for Officer Kent's rude behavior," said Officer Lunt, "He has just been stressed at the chaos that this rabbit has caused."

"Look," said Leon, "I would like to hear Officer Kent apologize to my girlfriend and hear about how this Scorbunny came to Wyndon. I can't stand outside forever on my crutches and we have seemed to attract a crowd. Could we talk inside here?"

Sarah looked around to see that there were a few people who had come outside of their buildings to see what was going on. One woman had her Rotom phone out hovering, which Sarah assumed to mean there was going to be recorded footage of this. She wasn't sure if this would portray her and Leon as good or bad. The bobbies took note of the crowds and agreed to Leon's request. The officers entered the building first with Officer Kent holding the door open after Officer Lunt, ordered him to do so. Leon walked past him on his crutches with Marcus following behind. After another prompt from Officer Lunt Officer Kent asked Sarah if she wanted help with the Pokémon but was answered with no by a hiss from Grookey and Sobble. Sarah gathered the Pokémon in her arms and stood up and walked through the doorway. Once they got inside, the Pokémon oohed and aahed and started chatting among themselves. Sarah wondered what they were talking about.

The entrance led straight to a lobby area where there was a front desk, with gleaming gold mailboxes on the wall. A well-dressed middle-aged black man stood behind the desk. The man's eyes seemed to bulge out as he saw the people and Pokémon that came in. He ran from his desk, with a Growlithe trailing behind him. The Growlithe narrowed its eyes at the Scorbunny, Grookey, and Sobble who were now squealing and trembling in fear. Sarah braced herself and gave Growlithe a stare back. Not the smartest decision, but the only one she could think of at the moment.

"Jacques!" shouted the front desk man to the Growlithe, "_Non! Non! Non!"_

Jacques the Growlithe growled a bit, causing Sarah to tighten her hold on the little Pokémon. Jacques responded to the front desk man's commands and went back over to him. Jacques was then commanded in a language that Sarah recognized as Kalosian. Jacques nodded and went behind the desk which caused the Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey along with Sarah to relax.

"Apologies _mademoiselle_." said the man

"Thank you," said Sarah, just grateful a fight hadn't broken out in the last few minutes.

The man nodded and then looked at Leon and let out a gasp.

"_Monsieur_ Best! What happened to you?!" cried the man in his Kalosian accent.

"I'm actually going to tell these officers right now. You can join us Remi, but could you prevent anyone from coming in in the next 30 minutes? I want to ensure privacy."

"Of course, _monsieur_!" said Remi with a nod of his head.

Soon, Remi brought two more workers who also had Growlithes to guard the door. Remi told the Growlithes to pay no heed to the Pokémon with Sarah as they were guests along with the humans, giving them no trouble. People were soon clamoring by the doors of the building, curiously peering in. They couldn't get too close as the Growlithes would snarl a warning if someone got too close. Everyone inside was soon in the area in front of the elevators. The three bobbies were squeezed onto a couch. Sarah was to the side of them and offered to help bandage Officer Cronkie who got bit by the Scorbunny. Leon was in a chair across from the bobbies that Remi had brought out with a stool so that Leon could elevate his foot. Snom was currently serving as a temporary ice pack which Remi thought was cute. Well, that's what Sarah assumed Remi said. Sarah couldn't understand Kalosian, but she knew from facial expressions what Remi meant with his worlds.

Grookey, Sobble, and Scorbunny were by Leon. Scorbunny was still terrified of the bobbies and hid under Leon's chair while Sobble and Grookey eyed the bobbies warily. Once Sarah was done bandaging the finger of the bobbie, she came over to sit on the ground by Leon and Remi was quick to get another chair for her despite her protests. She sat in her chair by Leon and once she put her bag down, Grookey and Sobble climbed into her lap. Scorbunny, poked its head up from under, looking at its friends curiously. Leon saw the interaction and invited Scorbunny to sit with him. Scorbunny gleefully agreed and hopped on the armrest next to Leon and sat on the armrest, kicking its legs a bit. The Scorbunny was certainly as restless Pokémon.

The bobbies told Sarah and Leon how that morning, a call was placed in by a few citizens close to the entrance of Wyndon of a Pokemon who was running frantically and causing little fires in the grassy areas just outside the entrance of Wyndon. After the fire department came to dose it out, the Pokémon was missing. The bobbies were sent out to find the Pokémon responsible and received a call further in the city about a similar thing happening. They found Scorbunny frantically running away from an angry old man who was angry about the rabbit ruining his carrots and soon the bobbies were chasing after the Scorbunny.

"It seems odd though that within less than twenty-four hours, extremely rare Pokemon are found without their mothers near Wyndon," commented Leon.

The bobbies nodded in agreement.

"Don't worry," said Officer Cronkie who was cradling his hand that had a bandaged finger, "We will report this back to our superiors. It's too strange of a coincidence considering how chummy they all are too. They are a trio of fire-water-grass Pokémon, they are either weak or strong against the other. They wouldn't be interacting with each other unless they were in a situation that forced them to."

Sarah frowned at this. She feared what these babies had gone through, especially considering the conditions Grookey and Sobble were in when they were found. Scorbunny seemed okay, but the fire rabbit might not trust anyone in a bobbie uniform for the rest of its life.

"I will report to the Chairman about this," said Marcus.

Everyone had forgotten that Marcus was still there, and his sentence caused everyone to jump in their seats. The bobbies, especially the young one looked fearful when they realized what they said was going to be known by Chairman Rose.

"Agreed." said Leon, "I am sure the Chairman would like to know, especially before the Gym Challenge. He would want to ensure the safety of everyone and their Pokémon. Also, Officer Kent, I believe you have something to say to Sarah here."

Everyone's heads turned to Officer Kent, who was currently looking at his shoes. He then looked at Sarah but had trouble looking her in the eye.

"Sorry," he said, "I am sorry that I yelled at you."

His colleagues weren't pleased with the apology. Officer Lunt punched him in the gut while Office Cronkie whispered something to him.

"I am sorry that I called you a bad trainer," said Officer Kent.

Officer Kent finally looked at Sarah in the eyes and Sarah could tell that Officer Kent was still frustrated about this morning, but he felt bad for saying what he said to her.

"Apology accepted," said Sarah, scratching the heads of Sobble and Grookey, who looked pleased with getting a head scratch.

"But before I go to Chairman Rose, I need to hear how this Sobble and Grookey ended up here." said Marcus, "Mr. Best, you'll probably need to explain how you and your girlfriend ended up like this."

"What?!" shouted Remi in shock looking at Sarah, "You are _Monsieur_ Best's girlfriend?"

Sarah nodded her head and Remi smiled at Leon.

"Why didn't you tell me that this lovely woman right here was your girlfriend? Introductions are needed!"

The bobbies laughed at Remi's reaction and even Marcus smirked, Leon looked uncomfortable and Sarah blushed. Sobble and Grookey were giggling and Scorbunny joined them, but the fire rabbit didn't really understand what was going on. Leon quickly introduced Sarah to Remi before recounting what happened. This recounting was different from the Poké Center. The Nurse Joys wanted the story to assess the damage Leon and his Pokémon had. These people wanted a story in all its glory. Leon then cleared his throat and began by explaining how he wanted to give his Charizard a new move. Sarah had found out early in their fake relationship that Leon was a very good storyteller. She could see "Champion mode" come into play as he began to recall what had happened to them from the cave to them coming to his flat building. She had seen this at official events when he was asked about past battles with famous gym leaders or he recalled some story from training his Pokémon. He was always eager to tell the story to entertain others. Leon regaled the strength of his Charizard in the battle against Sneasel and Abomasnow, the adorableness of Grookey and Sobble and how Sarah single-handedly saved him from an icy death.

Sarah made sure to tell her part of the story, considering she had to take care of nine Pokémon (three of them being Leon's battle-ready Pokémon) and even added the part in of when she first saw the Sobble and Grookey together, which made Remi almost cry at how adorable it must have been to see two Pokémon of opposing types care for each other like that. Remi and the bobbies were engrossed in the story like it was story time at kindergarten. Marcus listened closely and took notes on his phone but showed amusement at Remi's dramatic outbursts at intense moments of the story and the three bobbies' comments that threaten to deter the story with the tangents it led to.

"_Mon dieu_!" said Remi, "Monsieur Best, your _chérie_ is certainly the best! Only the best for the best champion? _Oui_?"

The bobbies nodded enthusiastically, not even noticing how many times Remi used the word best in a short amount of time

"Now, I'm really sorry for yelling at you earlier!" said the young bobbie, "You actually seem alright!"

Sarah rolled her eyes. It wasn't like she was looking for Officer Kent's approval. Leon narrowed his eyes at the officer and took Sarah's hand.

"She's certainly more than alright, she's brilliant! She was certainly a champion for the past twenty-four hours."

Leon looked at her with a loving expression on his face and gave her a grin, which caused Sarah's heart to beat wildly and her face to heat up. Sarah had always known that Leon was attractive but seeing him grin and look her like that made her realize why so many found him attractive. Remi looked like he was about to burst in happiness at the scene.

"Okay. Officers, you can go now. I got more of my women and men to spread out the crowds," announced Marcus, "I have been informed though there are news reporters eager to ask you about what was going on."

"Good to know!" said Officer Cronkie, "Come, let's go! It was nice to meet you Leon and you too Ms. Sarah. We will have our best people be on the lookout for any more suspicious occurrences of rare Pokémon appearing."

The bobbies headed out of the doors quickly and Remi followed after them to greet them off. Marcus came over to face Leon and Sarah.

"Chairman Rose and Ms. Oleana are on their way from Rose Tower to see you. They will meet you at your flat Mr. Best. They also wanted to meet with Ms. Char too."


	6. I Suffice for Friendship

**A/N: Chapter title is a line from the song "suffice" by mxmtoon.**

"Wow Leon, you have the best view of Wyndon!"

Sarah and Leon arrived at the top floor where Leon's apartment was, and the door was unlocked by a code that Leon typed in. Before opening the door, Sarah thought that the Champion's apartment would be all sleek and modern as that was the trend in Wyndon. She was surprised that the apartment wasn't designed in a modern style. It felt kind of homey and it reminded her of the countryside. Sarah couldn't pinpoint why, but with the warm colors and the way the furniture was, it reminded her of the countryside of Galar but planted in a very nice apartment with a view of the Wyndon skyline.

"The best view for Leon Best," said Leon, imitating Remi's Kalosian accent.

Sarah laughed, looked at Leon and said, "You got to stop it with all the best puns."

"Alright, alright. I'm just quoting what Remi told when he first showed me this place when I was thirteen," said Leon.

Leon then walked in on his crutches towards a couch right by the glass doors that lead out to a balcony. Sarah was in shock for a bit. He was thirteen when he moved out on his own? She didn't even try to attempt the gym challenge until she was fourteen. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like to get her own flat when she barely became a teenager. Sarah walked in and knelt to the ground to let four Pokémon down: Scorbunny, Sobble, Grookey, and a Snom who insisted on traveling on top of Sarah's bag after seeing the other Pokémon run to her for a lift. Sarah assumed that Snom had a case of FOMO and didn't want to get back in a Pokéball just yet.

Soon Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey were looking around the place in awe. Sarah put down her backpack lengthwise and tried to get Snom to come off of it, but it squealed "Snom!" and grabbed the fabric of the bag with its little legs, so Sarah let it be. She then helped Leon settled on the couch and brought an ottoman that was close by to rest his sprained ankle on. Leon then told her that there were some icepacks in the freezer in the kitchen. Sarah went to the kitchen that was attached to the main room, found the ice pack, wrapped it in a towel and put it on Leon's ankle.

"Thanks," said Leon.

"No problem," said Sarah.

Then they just stared at each other for a minute, unsure of what to say.

"Um…I'm going to call my family before Rose and Oleana come here," said Sarah.

"Okay, good. I should call my mum," said Leon.

Soon Sarah was in the kitchen deciding who in her family to call. She decided to start out by sending a message to the group chat with her parents and siblings in it:

I'm not arriving in Circhester today. I ended up saving the Champion and some Pokémon from the cold. We're all safe now. I'm back in Wyndon and the Chairman is coming to talk to me and Leon soon. I will call you all as soon as possible after that.

Sarah sent the message, cringing at how she had to shorten the struggles of the past twenty-four hours in a short text. Sarah then decided it would also be good to send it to her cousin Gordie too. She copied the message and sent it to him. She wanted to call everyone, but who knew when the chairman would come. Her parents would want a long conversation and she knew that when she originally planned her backpacking trip, she was supposed to arrive late morning or early afternoon. Her mum was probably still resting from the night shift at the hospital and her dad was probably finishing taking care of the Pokémon at his nursery and lab. She decided to call her half-sister Natasha since they were flatmates in Wyndon and Sarah promised to call her if there was any trouble on the way.

She called Natasha who picked on the first ring.

"Sarah?" asked Natasha.

"Yes," said Sarah.

"Oh, thank the gods of Alola! You're alive," said Natasha

Then before Sarah could respond, Natasha started to speak again at a furious pace.

"What is going on? You and that champion are together right now?! I thought you two didn't have to see each other for the next two weeks!" said Natasha.

"How did you know about it?" asked Sarah.

"It's all over the news!" said Natasha, "Please tell me that you're alright."

"I'm alright. I'm not harmed. It's just that everything happened so fast, first Leon was injured –" said Sarah.

"Likely story." huffed Natasha.

Sarah wanted to glare at her half-sister but couldn't since it was a voice call. Her whole family knew about the contract and the fake relationship. They had a strong hatred for Leon now because of it, even though Sarah was sure Leon was blackmailed as much as her. The question was what exactly Oleana used against him. Even though Sarah didn't know Leon very well, she felt that she needed to defend him and explain that he was indeed injured.

"You weren't there. He got into a rough patch saving an abandoned baby Pokémon from Sneasel and Abomnasnow." said Sarah, "If he didn't stumble upon the cave I was in, he would've died along with the Pokémon with him."

Natasha stopped speaking for a bit.

"Look, Nat," said Sarah, "I don't want to fight with you. I just wanted to talk with you. I 'm keeping my promise to call you when anything happened that wasn't according to plan.

"Sare, I shouldn't have let my temper go," said Natasha, "I'm just worried for you. Are you truly alright?"

"I am," said Sarah, "I'll come back to our flat once the Chairman comes to talk with me and Leon."

Natasha sighed, and said, "Alright. I also just saw your text in the family group chat. I will call everyone so I can reassure them you're truly doing fine."

Sarah then felt something tug on her trousers and she looked down to see it was Sobble with Scorbunny behind him. Sobble spoke to Scorbunny and pointed at Sarah. Scorbunny looked at Sarah with the cutest expression of joy and began to hop up and down. Then it booked it out of the kitchen. Each step left little embers that seem to die out quickly, but that didn't cause any less panic for Sarah.

"Scorbunny!" cried Sarah.

"Wait, what? There's a Scorbunny?!" asked Natasha.

"Sorry, Nat. I've got to make sure Scorbunny slows down. Love you!"

Sarah ended her call and ran in the main room with Sobble rushing behind her. Scorbunny was running around the main room, making laps around the couch Leon was on along with hops and flips. Leon was looking bewildered as he tried to get the Scorbunny's attention while talking to his mum on the phone. Leon couldn't chase after the Scorbunny with a sprained ankle, so Sarah took action instead. Sarah stopped in front of the Scorbunny who ran into her legs and fell on its bum. It looked up to Sarah and Sarah put on her best disappointed facial expression. Scorbunny looked down and sadly cried, "Scor." Sarah crouched down and brought Scorbunny in a hug. Scorbunny was starting to sniffle and rubbing its nose, trying to hold back tears

"Hey." said Sarah, "I'm glad to see you happy."

"Scor?" asked Scorbunny, looking up at Sarah curiously.

"It's good to be happy." said Sarah, "I just had to stop you because you got a little too excited there."

Scorbunny looked around the room and saw some burn marks on the nice polished wooden floor.

"He, he." chuckled the Scorbunny as it pulled its ears down.

"We'll find a place where you can run and hop where you want. It'll be outside. Alright?" asked Sarah.

Scorbunny nodded its head quickly and hugged Sarah around her neck and gave her a nuzzle on her cheek. Sarah hugged Scorbunny back and petted its head. Sarah noticed how matted the fur was in some places and decided that Scorbunny needed a bath to get its fur clean again. The Poké Center would be the best place though as they could also get a check-up for the Scorbunny too. Sarah set Scorbunny down on the floor and stroked its head. Scorbunny smiled happily with its eyes closed, enjoying the moment. Sarah then felt a set of eyes on her and looked up to find Leon still on the phone but staring at her.

"Earth to Leon," said Sarah, with a wave.

Leon shook his head and looked embarrassed.

"Um…Sorry mum didn't catch what you said," said Leon, talking to his mum again.

Leon then grinned woolooishly and scratched his head underneath his hat.

"Yes, I guess so," said Leon, "The Chairman is coming over soon because he wants to see how I'm doing after what happened yesterday. I'll try to call you later and tell Hop I say hello."

The call shortly ended afterward. Sarah then spotted Grookey about to jump from a bookcase.

"Grookey no!" cried Sarah.

Grookey let out a cry and jumped towards the hanging light fixture. It missed the rim by a few centimeters and started to fall. Sarah rushed over and caught the Grookey, who had his eyes shut tight and was bracing for the fall. It opened its eyes and began to look around in wonder about how it was in midair. It looked up and realized it was Sarah. Sarah gave him a look with one arched eyebrow and Grookey grinned at her as if to use his cuteness to get away with the trouble he was in. Sarah brought Grookey over to the couch and sat next to Leon. Grookey looked at Leon and saw that Leon had a frown on his face and eyebrows furrowed.

"First," said Sarah, "we want to tell you that we think you're great."

Leon looked at Sarah with surprise while Grookey smirked at Leon.

"But," said Sarah, "we have rules in this place for your safety. We're angry because you could have hurt yourself."

Grookey then said, "Groooo." in agreement and then hung his head down in dejection.

"I am going to assume that Leon will agree with me that one of the rules is that you can't jump from tall places here. One of them includes the bookcase," said Sarah, pointing to where Grookey had jumped from previously.

Grookey nodded his head in agreement, a somber expression on his face.

"Don't worry little guy," said Leon, "There's a closed garden area on the ground level of this building with lots of trees. We'll take you there later and you can climb all you want."

"Groo-key!" cried Grookey who clapped his hands. Leon ruffled the top of Grookey's head and Grookey laughed happily in response.

"Now, off you go," said Sarah.

Sarah set the grass monkey down who walked on all fours over to where Snom was chatting away with Scorbunny and Sobble. It looked like Snom decided to get off her backpack and socialize. Sarah smiled happily at the sight to see them all get along. The last few hours were worth it to see these little Pokémon so happy together.

"You're good with Pokémon," said Leon.

Sarah turned and saw Leon looking at her. It was like he was seeing her through new glasses and realized that something was there that he couldn't previously see.

"My dad runs a nursery for Ice Pokémon and studies them. I used to help him out a lot. I guess it's intuition now." said Sarah.

"I see," said Leon.

Sarah turned back to look at the Pokémon when Leon said something again.

"I apologize for not helping out," said Leon.

Sarah turned to look at Leon who had a frown on his face.

"You're injured," said Sarah, "You can't chase around baby Pokémon if you have a sprained ankle."

Leon nodded, but still frowned as he looked towards the Pokémon.

"Look, you're fine," said Sarah, placing a hand on his shoulder.

She realized for a second that maybe Leon didn't want reassurance through a hand on his shoulder. Instead of shrugging it off as she expected, he looked at her. Sarah noticed that his eyes seemed to shine like polished gold in the right lighting. She then focused on what Leon was saying.

"I would like to apologize for how I've been treating you."

Sarah was about to say something, but Leon spoke again.

"Before you say something, hear me out. I wasn't happy to be blackmailed into…this…"relationship". I was pretty angry at Oleana and even Rose for putting me in a situation with someone I had only met twice. It was mental. They expected me to act like a young lover when all I wanted to do was focus on the upcoming Gym Challenge."

Leon then looked at the front doorway which Sarah had left open. The Chairman was coming soon, and Leon was the only resident on this floor of the building. After waiting a few seconds Leon turned his head to look back at Sarah. He lowered his voice to make it quieter.

"The thing is I didn't consider you to be in the same situation as me. I realized this when Oleana mentioned the opening ceremonies that you might not have wanted this either. I saw how nervous you became. I knew that you were nervous because it reminded me of my first year of being the champion. At ten years old, I was in a position of fame, but I had no idea what I was doing. It honestly took me a few years to feel good about where I was and being the champion.

"And then Sarah…you saved my life. You and Kiki took such good care of me and made sure that I was alright. You took care of my Pokémon and calmed them down. You got a rescue team for me. I wouldn't have been able to be here right now without you. I'm sorry that I've treated you so horribly before."

Sarah moved her hand from Leon's shoulder and touched his arm gently.

"Leon, there's nothing you need to be sorry about. We were both…erm…forced…into this. You weren't expected to truly happy about it."

"But that does not excuse how I have treated you before. I'm the champion of Galar, but I haven't made sure you had a champion time with me."

"Is that why you decided to be so nice to me recently?" asked Sarah.

"Yes," said Leon.

"Well, that explains a lot about your behavior now. I am used to a different Leon, but I'm liking this one better."

Leon smiled at her and Sarah found herself smiling back.

"So, I was thinking that we could become friends. You're definitely a brilliant person and I hope that being in a fake relationship can at least make us friends," said Leon.

"Agreed," said Sarah.

Sarah's heart hurt a bit at the fact that Leon friend-zoned her, but shouldn't she be happy that Leon was at least going to try to enjoy their time together? For Arceus' sake, he wasn't her real boyfriend! Sarah reached out her hand and Leon shook to seal the deal in their newfound friendship.

"Good battle," said Sarah, referring to how Gym Leaders after battling did a handshake with the challengers that won.

"Haha," said Leon dryly but seemed amused.

Then there was a knock on the door which caused Sarah and Leon to drop their hands. They whipped their heads around to find Chairman Rose in his "off day" outfit of a white fleece jacket, Micro Cosmos hat, sunglasses and a hideous pair of teal shorts with white Pokéball designs on them. The Chairman took off his sunglasses and hat and smiled at the sight of Leon and Sarah with a gleam in his eye.

"Well, well, well! Look who it is! Galar's most popular couple!"

Rose continued to walk into the room while two workers from Macro Cosmos filed in behind him. The two workers stood by the door. Rose then noticed the four little Pokémon that were staring at him with curious looks. He crouched in front of them to look at them and introduced himself,

"Hello, my name is Rose. You must be the Pokémon Leon and Sarah rescued."

All the Pokémon nodded, except for Snom, who clapped his pincers together.

"I'm glad to see that you're in good shape and that you're doing well. You can go back to playing if you want to."

The Pokémon went back to talking with each other. Rose then stood up again, walked to the plush chair across from the couch and sat in it.

"It has certainly been a rough morning for all of us. Leon, you missed our meeting last night. I was very worried since I couldn't get a hold of you."

Leon was about to say something when Rose, put up his hand.

"You don't have to tell me. Marcus was recording what you were telling those bobbies about what happened to you two. I couldn't believe that it was real! Sarah, you saved the most important man in Galar—well, second to me— with your quick thinking and nursing skills. You are someone who has become a crucial asset to Galarian culture within the past few hours."

Sarah wasn't sure what to say but didn't have to say anything due to Oleana entering the room.

"Sorry Rose, that call took longer than expected."

That was when all hell broke loose. Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey began to freak out. They all shook in fear and huddled into small balls. Sobble was trying to stop himself from crying. Scorbunny and Grookey covered their ears, closed their eyes tightly and screeched as if in pain. Snom began to become nervous too, sensing the distress his playmates were in. A Pokéball clicked open inside Sarah's bag and the Cubchoo Sarah caught wiggled out of the bag. She went to Snom and bravely stood in front of Snom to defend it. Despite how much Cubchoo shook with fear, she glared at Oleana, with her snot coming in and out of her nose quickly.

"What's going on?" asked Rose, looking deeply concerned and shocked at all the little Pokemon.

"What are these-," began Oleana.

"Stop!" shouted Leon, "You are distressing them! It seems that your voice is triggering this reaction."

"Why Champion that is-," said Oleana.

Sarah stood up and stormed passed an appalled Oleana as Sarah grabbed an Ultra Ball from her bag to release Kiki. Kiki looked around her surroundings and shrieked in horror at seeing five Pokémon so distressed. She rushed over to them and comforted them by singing to them something that stopped them from crying in pain and softly petted them until they fell into a deep sleep. Cubchoo clung to Kiki as she fell asleep and Kiki obliged by sitting down and cradling her.

"Sarah, you can take them to my bedroom. They should be fine there since it's down at the end of the hallway," said Leon

"Got it," said Sarah, "Kiki, you get Snom and I will take care of the Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey."

"I'm sure that I can help," said Oleana.

Kiki who was about to pick up Snom immediately turned around to Oleana. She glared at the woman and held up her one of her hands in the universal signal representing "Stop!" Oleana didn't react too strongly to this, but her frown revealed that she didn't like being treated like that. Kiki ignored her and got Snom and soon had the two ice Pokémon in her arms. After one last warning glare at Oleana, Kiki followed Sarah down the hallway.

The bedroom was plain. There was a bed, a closet and a desk that had some photographs and a laptop. It looked like the bed wasn't made as if Leon had been in a hurry to go and start the day. Other than that, and a few clothes on the floor, the room was relatively tidy. Sarah set down the Scorbunny and the Sobble next to the Grookey that Kiki set down. Kiki coaxed Snom to wake enough so that he could string up some ice silk to stick on the wall. This simulated Snom sleeping from a tree as wild Snom did in the wild. Kiki managed to find a small throw blanket to cover Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey. Soon the Pokémon scooched together in sleep to cuddle with each other. Kiki tucked them in and gave each an affectionate pat on the head. The Cubchoo whimpered in its sleep, so Kiki spent some time slowly coaxing the Cubchoo next to the Grookey until she cuddled next to him.

"Kiki, would you be willing to stay with them? I have to back out to the living room," said Sarah.

Kiki reached for Sarah's hand, tugging at it to ask her to stay. Sarah crouched down to look at Kiki at the same eye level

"Look, I don't want to go back out there, but they won't go away until they have told Leon and me what they wanted to tell us."

Kiki's eyes widened when she heard the name Leon and said "Indeedee dee?" with great concern in her voice. Sarah realized the last time Kiki saw Leon he was lying in a cave injured.

"He got to the Poké Center and the nurses checked on him and bandaged him. He's got a cracked rib, some bruises, and a sprained ankle. He's doing much better now and should recover quickly." explained Sarah.

Kiki sighed in relief. Then gestured to the Sobble and Scorbunny.

"We also found them abandoned too. It seemed that Grookey already knew them. We don't know where though."

Kiki frowned, stroking her chin in deep thought.

"I'll leave you to watch the little ones. I would like Oleana, that woman out there, far away from here as soon as possible. The sooner that she's gone the better." said Sarah.

"Indeedee!" said Kiki in agreement.

Kiki gave Sarah a bop on the nose and a hug before Sarah left the room. As Sarah closed the door, she could hear the voices of Rose and Leon talking loudly. Sarah though didn't hear any of the conversations because Oleana saw her and told the men that Sarah was coming back. Sarah walked back into the room and sat next to Leon. She wondered what conversation Leon and Rose had. She knew that they were close as Rose was a mentor to Leon. Rose was the one to originally sponsored Leon when he came through Wedgehurst thirteen years ago and saw potential in a ten-year-old Leon to become a great Gym challenger. Yet, ever since Sarah signed the contract, she wondered if Rose was more like a master and Leon the servant who was commanded to do "what was best for Galar". It was a phrase that Oleana loved to say to Sarah and Leon during their checkup meetings. Their relationship supposedly fulfilled that purpose, but all that Sarah had seen it fill was gossip columns.

"I'm glad to see you two are becoming closer." said Rose, "I thought that having you two go to events would help spark interest. But you two on your own in the past twenty-four hours were able to gain more press and attention to the public, than any event Oleana and I planned."

Rose had a Rotom Pad in his hands and gave it to them. He showed Leon and Sarah different screenshots of tweets and posts on Facebook and Instagram. Rose also had them swipe to videos and pictures of them. Some were badly recorded videos of them coming to the Pokémon Center with the rescue team or the bobbies and them in front of Leon's flat building. There were pictures from the press of Leon walking on his crutches to the car, with Sarah behind him carrying "Two mysterious rare Pokémon!" as read in the caption. The last thing they saw was a news report video,

"Good Morning Galar! Everyone is gearing up for the Gym Challenge, but we have received news of how Champion Leon Best wouldn't have been at this year's challenge if it weren't for his girlfriend Sarah Char.

Not much is known about the Champion's new girlfriend, but from our sources, they have only been dating for two months. They met at a party thrown in honor of the birthday of Raihan, Hammerlocke's Gym Leader. Sarah Char was there due to her cousin Gordie Voss, the rock type gym leader of Circhester. At the party, she met the Champion and they seemed to have hit it off well. There have been more pictures of them taken by fans and the press at the social events they have been going to together.

But that's not all! It turns out Sarah really does love the Champion as she saved him from the brink of death! We owe her so much for keeping our undefeated Champion safe from the elements of Mother Nature."

The rest of the news spot interviewed their two rescuers who explained what happened starting with when Sarah's Corviknight arrived at the Pokémon Center with a note tied around its neck. There was another segment covering over how Sarah and Leon rescued three rare Pokémon. One of the bobbies was interviewed as he publicly thanked the work of "the Champion and Ms. Char" and told everyone that they will be looking into how these rare Pokémon were found far from their habitats.

"See?" said Chairman Rose with a big smile on his face, "Isn't it brilliant?"

Sarah wanted to shout and tell Rose that it wasn't brilliant at all. It was terrifying to find Leon injured in a snowstorm, deal with the press and care for injured and scared Pokémon. Instead, she kept silent and let the Rotom Pad hover back to the chairman.

"Oleana and I have got it all wrong," said Chairman Rose.

"Sir!" said Oleana, looking at little indignant, "How can you say that?"

Chairman Rose looked towards Oleana and chuckled.

"Oleana, you've done marvelous work in the years you have worked for me. I'm not discrediting you in any way. I'm just admitting that we didn't realize the potential of this pairing here."

Oleana nodded in response, but she still wasn't comforted by the Chairman's words. Rose then looked at Leon and Sarah.

"You two are obviously better seen together and interacting in a more natural setting. I know Oleana told me that she was giving you two weeks to do whatever you want which you still can do. But I think to make sure Leon doesn't end up in another life-threatening situation, you two will need to spend every day together until the Gym Challenge has begun."


	7. For the Next Two Weeks

"What?!" asked Leon in surprise.

Sarah was quiet but was just as surprised as Leon.

She had looked forward to the next two weeks to visit her family and to prepare to be in charge of the Gym League's social media accounts as the main handler during the gym challenge. Besides going to the exhibition match and opening ceremonies of course. Now, she had to spend every day with her fake boyfriend.

She didn't think even their newfound friendship would survive when they were forced to spend every moment together.

"Chairman Rose," said Oleana, "I believe the 'couple' is not finding this situation logical. The Champion needs to rest and prepare for the Gym Challenge. It looks like Ms. Char is quite winded from all that she had to do in the past few hours."

Winded was such an understatement. Sarah was extremely knackered and wanted out of this mad life. She was being told by the Chairman himself about spending more time with her famous fake boyfriend. She thought graduating from uni would lead to a career where she worked for various news companies and live comfortably. Her life in the past two months has been very different from what she had planned.

"It looks like Sarah is taking good care of Leon. He'll be needing that as he heals his sprained ankle and cracked rib. He can't completely take care of himself if he wants to even be ready to stand for the duration of the exhibition match at the end of the week." said Chairman Rose.

Sarah looked at Leon. How did Rose know about the diagnosis? Leon was not looking at her, he still seemed a little dumbfounded at the idea of spending every day with her. Maybe he was regretting offering the peace branch of friendship to her.

"Also, Sarah, I received a heated phone call from your cousin Gordie," said Chairman Rose.

Oh no, thought Sarah.

Sarah and Gordie were close despite Gordie being five years older than her. He always looked out for her growing up and was the one to teach Sarah how to battle when she decided she wanted to try the gym challenge.

"He was very concerned. At least that's what I could tell from his shouting," said Rose as he scratched the back of his head looking like he rather not be on the receiving end of that call again, "He wanted to know what happened to you. You were supposed to arrive in Circhester today, but your parents weren't even informed about what happened until they saw the news."

"Well, I had to make sure Leon was taken care off and also we got a lot of baby Pokémon." said Sarah, "Also, Oleana has versed me well on making sure to not waste the precious Chairman's time."

The Chairman seemed surprised for a moment and Sarah was wondering if she would get berated for her rudeness, but to her surprise, the Chairman chuckled.

"She speaks!" said the Chairman and then laughed at Sarah's incredulous look of surprise.

"Of course, Sarah," said the Chairman, "It's just that you are normally very quiet, so I was surprised to hear you say something. You need to speak up more in the public, kids these days would appreciate that sass you have."

Sarah didn't know what the Chairman was talking about but just shrugged her shoulders. The Chairman liked to give unsolicited advice.

"Anyways, I told him that you were safe at Leon's flat," said the Chairman, "I told your cousin that you were in a very high-stress situation and haven't replied. Gordie said he got a text from you at that moment and hung up. That's when I received a call from your aunt, Melony, asking me for updates as the newscasting in Sinnoh wasn't good on what was going on."

Sarah was even in deeper trouble. Her aunt Melony had gone on her annual journey to another region to avoid the Galar Gym Challenge and all the festivities with it. Melony was still emotionally hurt after having to battle Gordie over the gym four years ago. The mother and son relationship had been strained since then.

Sarah didn't know what would happen if her aunt came back for the gym challenge. Arguments still left unresolved might surface again. Circhester couldn't take any more fracturing from the Voss family. Some people still saw Gordie as a troublemaker and wondered why he had to be so adamant about rock type Pokémon.

"I invited her to stay at the Rose of Rondelands Hotel, along with the rest of your family. I invited them to the exhibition match too if they wanted to stay for that long. It seemed to appease Melony, but I was the one who had to call Gordie back. It seems as if they have not quite gotten over that type dispute from all those years ago," said the Chairman

Sarah took out her Rotom phone that was vibrating, but it didn't pop out of her jacket pocket. Her Rotom phone knew not to do that when she was meeting with the Chairman or his secretary.

"It's a call from Gordie," said Sarah,

She looked at the people around her. There was Oleana coolly observing her, the Chairman relaxing and Leon who looked slightly terrified at hearing Gordie's name.

"I'm going to answer it," said Sarah.

Sarah decided to go to the balcony for some more privacy. She hoped that Gordie could tell her what she needed to hear and then get back to the meeting. She wished he would have called later as they would only have a minute or two to talk.

"Gordie?" asked Sarah

"Sare! Am I so glad to hear from you!" said Gordie.

"Glad to hear from you too," said Sarah

"You're not injured or anything?" asked Gordie, "I know you have your Pokémon with you, but those ice types, especially the big ones can be quite violent."

"Nope." said Sarah, "I didn't see any big ones.

There were a Cubchoo and a Snom I picked up along the way."

Gordie let out a chuckle.

"Wow, you're as bad as Uncle Rick." said Gordie, "He'll probably be so proud of you."

"Well, what can I say? I'm my father's daughter," said Sarah.

Sarah's dad Rick Char was a renowned professor known to specialize in Ice Types. He started in Alola where he was from but relocated after marrying Sarah's mum. Sarah wished she could continue to chat with Gordie but knew that she didn't have all the time in the world.

"Look," said Sarah, "I'm taking a break from the Chairman and his secretary for a bit right now. They are talking with me and Leon right now."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," said Gordie, "I saw what happened to you and Best on the news. I didn't hear anything from you and called the Chairman a few minutes ago. I thought something fishy was going on especially since he said you were going to take care of Leon the next two weeks."

"What?! No no no!" said Sarah.

At that moment Oleana opened the glass doors.

"Ms. Char," said Oleana, "Is everything alright?"

Gordie scoffed through the phone and Sarah nodded her head.

"We're waiting for you before we can continue. The Champion seems worried for you right now. Try not to look so distressed."

Oleana then closed the door and Sarah turned towards to look at the skyline.

"They didn't say anything about me babysitting him," said Sarah.

"Sare, you need to be careful. Rose and that evil clingy lady are like Aborks." Said Gordie, "They won't hesitate to get what they want."

"I know," said Sarah.

"Besides, the Champion can't hurt you. Especially after I came over and gave him a talk," said Gordie.

"Wait, when did you talk to Leon?" asked Sarah, "I thought you only speak to each other at gym league meetings."

"Remember that day I was in Wyndon almost a week ago?" said Gordie, "I decided that the Champion needed some sense knocked into him after treating you so rudely. I lost it when Natasha told me how you came home crying and talking about all the things you were doing wrong and why the Champion hated you."

Sarah put her face in her free hand. She remembered the last dinner party she and Leon went to, she felt so deflated and sad. He was still refusing to talk with her and gave her the cold shoulder when no one was watching. She even excused herself at one point to go to the loo and stayed for ten minutes wanting to cry but couldn't. When she got back to the flat that she shared with her half-sister Natasha, that was when the tears went freely down her face. She thought that Natasha would keep it to herself, but Natasha didn't.

"What did you do to him?" asked Sarah.

"Oh, you know, brought Coalossal out, almost started a fight with Charizard inside Best's flat, and yelled some threats at him," said Gordie casually as if he was recounting what he ate for breakfast that morning.

Sarah didn't know what to do. She understood that her family had a constant fear that Leon would take advantage of her. The contract though stated that any form of PDA had to be of consent, and both had to agree to it. Oleana though liked it when Sarah seemed uncomfortable when she had to remind Sarah to kiss Leon on the cheek every once in a while, at these social events. Sarah was sure that the woman knew how awkward she felt about it and got sadistic pleasure from it. Leon didn't like Sarah besides today and the previous check-up meeting, so they would probably would never even kiss on the lips by the time of the last official battle in the Gym Challenge.

"Gordie, you shouldn't have done that," said Sarah.

She wasn't going to condone Gordie's methods of threatening. Especially letting Coalossal in a flat? Coalossal could easily burn down the building if he got angry enough.

"You're welcome. Did Best apologize to you?" asked Gordie.

"Yes," said Sarah.

"Well, good. My threat worked, and he won't be such a bloody prick now," said Gordie.

Sarah heard a knock on the glass doors behind her. Sarah turned around to see Oleana, with hands on her hips, waiting for Sarah to end her call.

"Look I have to go." said Sarah, "But I'll call you back later?"

"Call back as soon as the Chairman and freaky lady get out of there. Tell Best that I'm glad he apologized, but the threat still holds.

Love you, Sare!"

"Love you too Gordie," said Sarah.

Sarah ended the phone call and walked back in. Sarah glared at Chairman Rose.

"You told Gordie that I am going to nurse Leon back to health?" asked Sarah flatly.

"You did not," said Leon in disbelief.

Leon also seemed slightly terrified when Sarah mentioned Gordie. Since Sarah knew about Gordie's threats to Leon she could understand Leon's reaction better. Gordie was technically Leon's co-worker and Sarah wondered how it would play out for the next few months as they had to be in the same room for meetings.

"To be frank Leon, Sarah is the only one that should watch over you. You seem to run into a lot of trouble on your own. Charizard has gotten you out of some tough situations, but Sarah is like your good luck charm now." said Chairman Rose.

"Besides," said Oleana with a grin that made her look like a devil, "A part of the contract outlines that we have control how much time you do spend together. You could be inside here all day, but as long as that generates interest, it has done the job."

"I'm not going to be cooped up here," said Leon, "I still have to train, Sarah has work and we have to figure out what we need to do with Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey. I'm not going to hand them over to just anyone!"

"What do you think we're here for?" said Oleana, "We have so much more to plan and discuss. It's going to be very busy for the two of you."

It took over an hour to plan the next two weeks. It wasn't easy. They were like a family figuring out who takes one child to football practice while the other child needed to be at ballet at the same time. It seemed impossible to appease everyone. Chairman Rose and Oleana weren't the parents that were looking out for their children though. They push the boundaries of what Leon and Sarah were comfortable with multiple times.

At first, it started with the logistics of where Sarah's family was staying and what Leon and Sarah would be doing. Lodgings were when the first compromise was made. It was clear in the original contract that Leon and Sarah were never expected to move in together. Yet Oleana and the Chairman kept trying to insist that a new line would be replaced for the time being as someone needed to make sure Leon was alright. Sarah already had her flat in Wyndon that she shared with her half-sister Natasha and their friend Kate that was a ten-minute trip on her Corviknight from Leon's flat. Despite this fact, the Chairman and Oleana wouldn't budge as they wanted to keep the appearances of Sarah and Leon spending a lot of time together

Sarah quickly said no, Leon could take care of himself and they could order a nurse to come in. They argued about it until Sarah agreed that she would stay at Leon's flat and stay in one of the guest rooms. Leon's flat was huge and had three extra bedrooms besides his own. One room would go to her parents, one would go to Sarah and one would go to another member of Sarah's family.

Once that was settled, they began making a loose schedule. Sarah and Leon would go to work respectively during the mornings and afternoons while their evenings would be free to spend time with Sarah's family whether in a private or public sphere. The Chairman suggested that maybe Leon and Sarah could go on their first public date at some point, but he left it up to them. The Chairman commented that he did this because when he and Oleana didn't plan their interactions, it would be more natural, and it would probably get more press.

Oleana kept getting more frustrated throughout the planning as she was not in complete control of what was going on. She would try to calmly coax Rose out of a decision and suggested to not follow Leon's or Sarah's suggestions of things to do with Sarah's family or on dates, but Rose politely declined each time. Oleana just nodded her head demurely and said, "Of course, Chairman." in response. Sarah wondered though if there was a lot of resentment that Oleana had about what Rose was doing. Oleana had always hovered around the Chairman and usually had a lot of control over him, but as of right now the Chairman seemed to be fine doing things on his own today.

Then the worst of the troubles came when Leon wanted to take time off to visit his family in Postwick the next week right after his exhibition match. Chairman Rose flatly refused and tried to move on, when Leon almost lost his temper.

Sarah had never seen Leon ready to explode like a Voltorb before. Leon insisted that he was going to visit his family and would be backed in Motostoke before the official event that celebrated gym challengers beginning their challenge.

"Must I remind you that Ms. Char is to be accompanying you on your little holiday if you want to go and see your family. She could not possibly take off work to go and visit your family. Her work schedule is more or less set to be busy with the gym challenge. Usually, the social media spends time posting lots of information needed for the challengers this time of the year." said Oleana, "Why don't you plan for your family to come and visit you? They can come after Ms. Char's family leaves."

"No, they can't exactly leave the Wooloos on short notice," said Leon, "I promised my brother Hop that I would visit him at Postwick before the official starting gym challenger ceremony. Sarah should stay here in Wyndon since she has work. She has a lot to do being in charge of the social media coverage of the Gym Challenge."

Sarah was glad to hear that Leon remembered the specific occupation that she now held. She was working in a prominent position in the media world of Galar considering that the gym challenge is the hugest sporting event in the region. This was due to Oleana's behind the scenes work as if to show Sarah that signing her rights away to being single was fine because she got an amazing job. Sarah was a uni grad leading a team of professionals who had vied for her position to lead the group that had control over how the Galar Gym League would reach out to fans via social media throughout the gym challenge. Not only that, but Sarah would be part of news broadcasts to update viewers about what social media was saying about the gym challenge.

Her co-workers were not happy with her at first as they all thought she wasn't qualified at all and that her boyfriend used his connections to get the job. Sarah though was able to win them over by showing them that she was a leader, not a boss and she needed their help to make the Gym Challenge's social media the best it could be. Soon her team felt comfortable with her because she would listen to their ideas and wanted to implement them. Teamwork was what made her job easier, but that didn't mean the stress decreased. She wondered how they would react to finding out she won't be in the office during the two weeks leading up to the gym challenge, which had more or less begun already for her and her team. A few days to visit family was fine, but if she were to switch those days out to be later all of a sudden? That would be a nightmare.

"Leon," said Rose, "You must understand that a part of the deal was that you two will be spending these two weeks together.

You have to consider your health Leon! Don't get offended when I say this, but you were foolish to travel unprepared on Route 10. Especially since you notoriously get lost even in Postwick. Postwick! I've been there and it's five farmhouses barely outside Wedgehurst."

"But Charizard helps me to make sure I don't get lost," said Leon with gritted teeth.

"But Charizard is a Pokémon." said Chairman Rose, "A very loyal and heroic one like its trainer, but similar to you it attracts trouble. Your duties as champion include helping to protect those in need in Galar, but Leon, you need to make sure you are safe too. Sarah here is a human. A human who took care of you and multiple Pokémon and got a rescue team for you. Having another person helps, I wouldn't be where I am without help from Oleana"

Chairman Rose smiled and Oleana looked quite pleased by the compliment. Sarah looked at Leon and it seemed Leon had the same thoughts as she did: 'Um….no…she made our lives worse.'

"Mr. Best have you agreed…" said Oleana.

"I'm going to see my family and I will travel by train. It has people on there. I'll make sure my Rotom phone is completely charged so that while I travel on the train, I can call for help." said Leon

"I'm sorry, Leon, but that's final," said Rose.

"Hop just turned fifteen. I wanted to see him off at the start of his gym challenge," said Leon.

Leon at this point looked downhearted at the thought of not being there for Hop. Sarah knew that the media loved to praise Leon for helping out his single mother and little brother through the money he earned from battles, sponsorships and whenever he helped out the Galar region. Sarah didn't know much about his family, but if Leon was fighting so hard with Chairman Rose to visit them in Postwick, he must love his family a lot.

The Chairman looked shocked at this statement.

"Your brother is old enough to be a gym challenger?! I remembered when I first met him! He hadn't even entered kindergarten yet!" said the Chairman, "I sympathize with you Leon, but unless Sarah is coming, I cannot guarantee any safety. I want to be 100% sure you are taken care of by someone even if Obstagoons came raiding through those farmlands and declared Wedgehurst a place of anarchy."

Sarah then realized that Chairman Rose had put her and Leon in a corner. Leon knew that his family couldn't just go and leave the family business on short notice and he wanted to keep a promise to his brother. She had enough family drama in her life to know that one action could ruin a relationship for up to years on end. Sarah then thought of what she could do to make sure Leon could see his family. She hated how the Chairman seemed to not care whether or not Leon wanted to see his family. She could always video call in when needed for work and she could bring her laptop with her. She had only so far taken off one day from work like she was supposed to. Maybe since she was going to work this week, she could ask for the days she had off to be moved the week after. Sarah knew that it was a risk, but it wouldn't be fair to Leon if he couldn't see his family while the Chairman was willing to accommodate her family.

"I'll go," said Sarah.

Leon turned his head to her, with a shocked expression on his face and then a different emotion came on his face. It was guilt.

"Sarah," said Leon, "You don't need to do this."

Chairman Rose just chuckled and waved off Leon as if what he said was foolish nonsense.

"Oh Leon, always looking out for others. It looks like though Ms. Char comes to save you again!" said Chairman Rose, "Thank you! We are indebted to you to keep our Champion safe from whatever nature throws at him."

"Well Chairman, I think that's all we needed to do for today with the 'couple'," said Oleana.

"Alright," said Chairman Rose, "Is there anything I can do for you two before I go?"

"Yes," said Sarah, "Could you get in contact with those that run the sanctuaries of the Scorbunny, Grookey, and Sobble evolution lines? It will be helpful to talk to them about the specific care needs for them in person. They also might know how they ended up so close to Wyndon."

"I don't think—" began Oleana.

"Brilliant idea Sarah! I'll do that right away!" said the Chairman.

Oleana glared at the Chairman, but he didn't see it as Oleana was standing slightly behind him. Sarah wondered why Oleana was not happy with the Chairman's suggestion. It was as if Oleana was trying to direct the conversation in a different direction.

The Chairman nodded his head and stood up, already typing away on his Rotom pad in what Sarah assumed was an email to the head researchers at the sanctuaries.

"It was good to see you two. I hope that you two have fun together!" said the Chairman, "Well, not too much fun."

Oleana rolled her eyes and guided the chairman out of the apartment. The Macro Cosmos Workers followed them and shut the door behind them. The meeting was over, but the time Leon and Sarah were supposed to spend together had only just begun.

**A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Life has certainly been crazy. My university went to being completely online due to COVID-19 (coronavirus) and an internship abroad I was supposed to go on became internship to be done completely online. There's a lot of uncertainty and it can be scary. I know some of you might have experienced the full brunt and I offer my condolences and sympathy.**

**Yet, this is a time where I have found myself slowing down. I've been connecting with friends and family I haven't talked to a while by phone or video chat. I am catching up on school work. I have more time to write, draw and play the ukulele. One of my professors did mention in our last class we got to meet on campus that when Newton was at Oxford he got sent home due to the black plague During Netwon's time at home, he created calculus. I haven't fact-checked it and I'm not sure if people would rejoice at this statement, but I think that there's a time for a lot of new things to be created.**


	8. Pictures of the Past

A silence followed as the Chairman shut the front door. It was broken by Leon speaking.

"You didn't have to do it," said Leon.

Sarah looked at Leon, wanting to say, "Do what?", but she knew what he meant.

"What did you want me to do?" said Sarah, "Let your brother feel disappointed that you couldn't come home while my whole family gets together?"

Leon narrowed his eyes and then looked away from her.

"I can take care of myself," said Leon, "That's what a champion does."

Sarah frowned at that statement. Being self-sufficient was a desirable quality, but it wasn't a requirement for a champion to do everything on their own.

"Leon, I don't doubt you can," said Sarah.

Leon huffed.

"Then why does Rose think that I'm still weak?" asked Leon.

"You're not weak!" began Sarah.

Sarah was then interrupted by two Rotom phones, hers and Leon's. Both of Rotom phones came flying up to their faces. They were telling their trainers that they had calls coming in.

"My parents…" said Sarah.

"It looks like Hop's calling me during his lunch break from school," said Leon,

"I'll go on the balcony so that you can have some privacy," said Sarah.

As Sarah went out, she kept thinking about what Leon said. She wanted to get to the bottom of why Leon thought himself to be weak, but that would have to be for another time.

* * *

After the phone calls, Sarah went back to her flat to gather her things for staying in Leon's flat. Going back to her flat was tiring. First, she had to sneak out a side entrance to not get caught by the paparazzi. She then found a tube station nearby only to get off a stop early once she realized people were looking at her. It was clear from their facial expressions, that they recognized her and were soon whispering to each other. A teenager even tried to take a photo of her, but she left too quickly for them to get a good shot of her.

No one was back in the flat as Natasha and Kate were at work, so Sarah took the time to shower and change into nicer clothes while Kiki packed what Sarah would need for the upcoming days. Sarah took the time to also call Gordie and the rest of her siblings. Most of these conversations were about checking to make sure Sarah was alright and confirming their travel plans. Sarah didn't arrive back in Leon's flat building until it was close to dinner time. She was glad to see that only a few reporters were loitering by the front door. It made it a lot easier to get into the building.

"_Bonsoir Mademoiselle_ Sarah," greeted Remi who was sitting behind the desk reading the newspaper which Sarah happened to notice was her old employer, the Galar Post.

"Hi Remi," said Sarah.

"Just so you know, _Monsieur _Best is out in the garden area with all those _petite_ Pokémon," said Remi, "It was quite hard to get them all down."

"_Merci_ for all your work," said Sarah.

"My pleasure _mademoiselle,_" said Remi, "I strive to treat all the residents, and those they love with the utmost respect. I'll get you to the garden. We have a code, to prevent any strangers from coming in."

Remi walked alongside Sarah. They arrived at a door that had a huge glass window. Sarah couldn't see any sign of Leon or the Pokemon that might be with him. That is until she saw a Charizard flying low to the ground being chased by Scorbunny.

"They're playing tag," said Sarah with a smile.

Remi muttered something about scorched grass as he typed in a passcode and held the door open.

"_Voila_," said Remi.

"Thanks," said Sarah.

Once Sarah entered through the door, Remi shut the door quietly and walked away. The garden was beautiful with trees and flowers in the huge green field behind the building. Brick walls were built around the perimeter to give an illusion you weren't in the heart of Wyndon.

Sarah walked in the direction that the Charizard and Scorbunny went in and she found herself on a stone pathway that led to where Leon was. He was sitting at a bench by a pond. He changed out of his champion uniform into streetwear. He had a t-shirt with a Wooloo face printed on it and long black gym shorts. He didn't even have a hat on his head and his long purple hair was tied up into a bun. Leon looked so relaxed from what Sarah could see of his side profile, his eyes were closed and he didn't have a frown on his face, but it wasn't a smile either.

Sarah didn't realize she was staring at him for more than a few seconds until she heard Grookey cry a greeting from a tree to her left. She looked up in surprise to see Grookey high up in the tree along with Snom and Cubchoo, Grookey then went down, jumping from branch to branch and was soon falling towards her. Sarah dropped her bag as she caught Grookey in her arms. Grookey laughed and then hopped down from her arms and ran back to the tree. Cubchoo scooched down the tree, digging her claws in the tree and she ran to Sarah, hugging her leg.

"Hey Grookey," said Leon, "No more surprises for Sarah tonight, alright?"

Grookey turned to Leon and nodded and scampered back up the tree. Leon then waved at Sarah and then gestured for her to come over. Sarah picked up her bag with one hand and carried the Cubchoo in her free arm and sat down beside Leon, placing the Cubchoo on her lap.

"Nice natural ottoman you got there," said Sarah, pointing to the log that was the perfect height for Leon to elevate his foot.

"They cut down a dead tree yesterday within the garden. When I came out here a few minutes ago, Aegislash went to where they brought it out to be shredded, cut off a section and brought it back here."

Sarah then heard something that sounded like metal clanging, which caused her to jump and squeeze Cubchoo, who squeaked in surprise. It turned out the sound was Aegislash switching to blade form. The sword and shield Pokémon was calm as he held out a couple of daisies to Sarah.

"For me?" asked Sarah.

"Ae-gi-slash!" said Aegislash, his one eye somehow adequately expressing his happiness.

"Thank you," said Sarah, as she took the flowers and smelled them.

Aegislash did a deep bow, his shield almost touching the ground and Sarah bowed her head. Aegislash then went back into shield form and floated over to watch Charizard use his stomach as a mini trampoline for Scorbunny. Sarah let out the rest of her Pokemon who all soon joined in watching or playing with each other. Layla swiftly went up the tree to where Snom was and gave him a quick ride down to the ground while Grookey chased after them. Cornelius happily took to the skies and Kiki stood beside Sarah, quietly observing everything before deciding to take the Cubchoo from Sarah. Cubchoo didn't seem to mind and seemed to enjoy being cradled in the Indeedee's arms.

"During my first trip to Kalos, I met Wikstrom who is a member of the Elite Four there," said Leon, "He specializes in steel type Pokemon and has an Aegislash as an ace Pokemon. Wikstrom made sure my Aegislash, who was a Honedge at the time would know the ways of being a good old Kalosian knight even if he was from Galar. I think Aegislash gave you those flowers to you as a thank you."

"It was a sweet gesture for your Aegislash to do so," said Sarah, "By the way, where's Sobble?"

"He's right…" said Leon, "Oh, shoot, he was in the pond just a second ago!"

A shot of water came out of the pond, landing on Leon's face. As Leon wiped the water off his face, Sarah saw the water in the pond ripple in a small space near the edge. It was then that Sarah realized it was Sobble turning from invisible to visible. With his camouflage gone, he had a cute smile on his face before diving back in the water.

"I never knew that a Sobble could be so cheeky," said Sarah.

Leon didn't say anything. They watched as Sobble swam to the other edge of the pond where Leon's Sesmitoad was relaxing at the edge of the bond. Sesmitoad waved lazily to Sarah before going back to watch Sobble swim in circles. Kiki had walked over to where Sesmitoad was and soon began a conversation with each other.

"So…" said Leon after a couple of minutes, "How did talking with your family go?"

"Do you want the good, the bad or the ugly first?" asked Sarah.

"The good?" said Leon with a bit of uncertainty in his voice.

"The good thing is that this is the first time in two years that my family gets to spend time in person altogether," said Sarah, "You get to see the wonderful blend of Voss and Char families at their finest. The bad thing is that they don't like you and I'm sure my brother, along with my Dad and Gordie are going to interrogate you when they come."

Leon nodded with a grim look on his face.

"Gordie made that clear when we last saw each other," said Leon.

"What exactly did Gordie do?" asked Sarah.

Leon was silent.

"Actually, never mind," said Sarah, "I don't need to know."

"Maybe one day I'll tell you when the threat is not over my head." said Leon, "So I heard the good, the bad and now what's the ugly?"

"Do you remember how Gordie became the gym leader in Circhester?" asked Sarah.

"Of course," said Leon, "It was all anyone could talk about for months."

"Well, Melony hasn't been in Galar during the Gym Challenge season for four years. Melony and Gordie's relationship was very strained after the battle of the gym in Circhester. Family gatherings end up with them being on opposite sides of the room, so they don't fight."

"That's bad," said Leon, "Not sure what else to say, but that's bad."

"Bad indeed and potentially ugly. That's why my cousins Jonathan and Hailey, are cutting their backpacking trip through Johto short. They want to be back together as a family. I think they hope this will change things."

"Do you think they will?" asked Leon.

Sarah shrugged her shoulders.

"There's always hope, right?" said Sarah.

Leon looked at her and shrugged his shoulders back.

"So," said Leon, "It seems like a lot of people are coming to visit. Tell me about your family. I don't want to mess up on names."

"Alright," said Sarah, glad that the conversation topic was changed, "Let me show you a picture."

Sarah got out her phone and showed Leon her lock screen. It was of her parents and siblings during a trip to Alola two years ago.

"Okay, I just want to give a little preface about my family. That yes, my dad is Alolan. Yes, my mum's white. Yes, my three siblings, including the ones who have a darker skin tone are actually my half-siblings."

Leon nodded his head and Sarah was grateful that he was letting her explain first. Most people bombarded with questions that were often annoying and sometimes offensive.

"So, this man," said Sarah, pointing to a large Alolan man with a big smile on his face, brown eyes, and salt and pepper hair, "is my dad Rick Char. He was born and raised in Alola, but after he married my mum, he and his two children from his first marriage, moved to Galar to live with my mum and her daughter from her first marriage. And then, they had me! He works as an ice type Pokémon specialist. It's fitting that he and Mum met in Sinnoh when he was an aide to Professor Rowan getting his post-doc, you know, with it being a very cold region and all."

"Your parents must have quite the story to tell!" commented Leon.

"Their story is certainly wild. It's definitely very script worthy too. It's best told by Mum and Dad though. Anyway, I'm getting distracted. Here's my mum, Charice Voss."

Sarah pointed to a short white woman who had short white blonde hair, hazel eyes and a small smile on her face. Charice and Rick stood side by side, arms wrapped around each other.

"My mum is Melony's older sister by a few years. Mum had always wanted to work as a doctor, so Melony was the one to pursue taking over the gym, at least until Gordie took over. Mum works in the hospital in Circhester."

"So which ones are your siblings then," said Leon, "I'm counting more than three in here and also there's a baby and a child."

Sarah laughed.

"The child is actually my second cousin Hau. His grandpa is my paternal grandmother's brother. When I lived in Alola a few years back as a teenager, I used to be Hau's babysitter and we became buddies because of that. In this photo, he photobombed at the last minute. Hala, Hau's grandfather, and my grandmother thought it was hilarious and saved the picture. The baby is actually my nephew Louis, who's the son of my half-brother Sean and his wife Anne."

Sarah pointed out who each person was to Leon, starting with Hau and his sunny smile. Louis was only a few months old. All he had to do was be his baby self and everyone thought he was the cutest thing. Sean looked like a younger and taller version of his father and his wife Anne, had dark skin and shoulder length black hair with small white and blue gems weaved into it.

"Then there's my sister Marie," said Sarah.

Sarah then pointed to a woman in her thirties with brown eyes and a blonde pixie cut with dark roots showing. Marie was standing next to another woman with short light brown hair and wearing a lot of green.

"The woman beside her is Gardenia," said Sarah, "She's my sister's partner."

Sarah waited to see what Leon's response was. Not everyone was polite about her sister being a lesbian. His brows furrowed as he kept muttering.

"Gardenia. … Why does she look familiar?" said Leon to himself.

"She's the grass type gym leader in Sinnoh," said Sarah.

Leon then snapped his fingers.

"That's it! She was at the world championships in Unova!" said Leon, "I remember her battling against my cousin."

"Wait who's your cousin?" asked Sarah.

"My cousin Iris was the champion of Unova at the time," said Leon, "I went because champions and gym leaders from other regions came to participate. I made sure though to watch Iris and Gardenia was one of the opponents she went up against."

"Cool," said Sarah and made a mental note to find out about the other champion in Leon's family, "So that's my family. Do you want to show me yours?"

"Of course!" said Leon, "Here's a picture of me with my brother Hop."

Leon showed her a picture of him and Hop. Hop shared a lot of similarities with Leon, the golden eyes, purple hair, and tan skin. Hop though had a shorter haircut, no facial hair and was much shorter in height than Leon.

"Hop's fifteen, right?" asked Sarah.

"Yes," said Leon, "He's a super energetic kid. Sometimes he talks a mile a minute, but he's got a good heart. He just gets so excited sometimes that words can't keep up with him. He's certainly smarter than I am. He gets all these good marks in school and he could go to uni if he wants too. I'm not home that often, but I know that without a doubt Hop's always there and excited to see me."

Leon then unlocked his phone and went to the photo app. As he scrolled through his photos he continued talking.

"I have to tell you something. Hop doesn't know anything about the contract. For all he knows, our relationship is real."

Sarah nodded, reminding herself at least their budding friendship was real.

"What about your parents?" asked Sarah

"Well, my dad passed away a long time ago," said Leon.

"I'm so sorry," said Sarah.

"It's fine," said Leon, "I mean, it isn't fine that Dad's gone, but he passed away when I was nine. I've had some time to deal with my grief. I still have some good memories with him so at least I have that and home videos. I do wonder what he would think of me now. What would he have said when I became champion? What would have been his reaction to everything that came after that?"

Leon looked up to the sky, the sun almost setting behind the mountains. Sarah let him have his silent moment before Leon shook his head.

"Sorry," said Leon.

"You don't have to apologize to me Leon," said Sarah, "I can see that you dad is someone you love a lot and I can see that you miss him. Also, we're friends. I know that we've only agreed to an official friendship today, but if you need to talk to someone about anything you're struggling with, I'm here for you."

"Thanks, Sarah. I really mean it," said Leon, "I'm also here for you if you need to talk about anything. Ah! Here's an old photo Mum found a few months ago. It was when Hop was a baby."

Sarah looked at the photo Leon was showing. What she first noticed was Leon as a child. His hair was cut short and he was small. Little Leon had a cute expression of joy on his face as he looked at the camera, holding a baby Hop. Sarah then noticed the parents, who were sitting on the ground around Leon. His mother was making sure that Leon was holding the baby correctly. She had the purple hair and golden eyes that Leon and Hop inherited. His father was to Leon's other side, he had black hair that looked like it had gotten some serious static shock, and brown eyes hiding behind glasses. He had a big smile on his face that Sarah instantly recognized as Leon's. It was a smile that reminded her of Leon's smile after a battle, as he waved to the cheering crowd that was celebrating their undefeated champion.

"So, these are my parents. My dad actually worked for Macro Cosmos. He was the lead researcher on alternate sources of energy. During one of his research trips, he got into an accident and passed away. We moved in with my grandparents after that. I don't have a picture of my granddad and grandmum on my phone, but I have one in my flat somewhere."

Leon then put his Rotom phone in his pocket and shifted a bit on the bench.

"Anyway, the only person in my family that knows about the contract is Mum," said Leon.

"What are her thoughts about it?" asked Sarah.

"Probably something similar to your family's thoughts on it," said Leon, "You might've heard already through social media, but my last relationship ended a year ago and the press got quite a story from it. Mum was worried that it would just be something similar, but after what happened today, she seemed to have changed her thoughts."

"Seemed too?" asked Sarah, "You're not sure?"

"Well, it was something that she said," said Leon who then looked a little embarrassed and smoothed back some flyaway hairs, "But we'll see what happens when we get there."

"It isn't like I'm the first girl you brought back home right?" joked Sarah.

Sarah hoped the Leon would agree with her, but his silence confirmed it was the opposite.

"You never brought any of your past girlfriends to Postwick?!" said Sarah.

"Well, I was busy! And our schedules never lined up! Especially with my last ex, she was a model from Kalos and it was a struggle to even plan to be in the same region at the same time without it being work related." said Leon.

Sarah put her head in her hands and groaned.

_For the love of the Tapus,_ thought Sarah, _the first girlfriend Leon brings home is the one that he's in a fake relationship with!_

"I'm sure it will be fine," said Leon, "We're only going to be there for a few days."

Sarah gave him a glare and Leon suddenly looked very worried.

"Do you know how big of a deal it was in my family when Sean brought Anne to meet the family for the first time? Or even for Marie to bring Gardenia to Galar?"

Sarah swore she could see the ellipses forming over Leon's head.

"Oh," was all he said.

Sarah sighed.

"But look," said Sarah, "Besides that _BIG _piece of information, I'm still coming with you. You need to be there for Hop at the start of his gym challenge."

Leon nodded.

"I don't know why Rose made it mandatory for you to come," said Leon, "But we got this. My mum is good at keeping secrets and as long as we pretend that we are the couple we say we are we'll be fine."

"Fine," said Sarah, "But just so you know, my family, including my aunt and cousins, know about this contract. You don't have to worry about acting like my boyfriend. You just need to worry about making sure that you leave a good impression and prove that their misconceptions about you are wrong."

Leon gulped.

"No one is going to treat me like Gordie did, right?"

"I hope so," said Sarah.

**A/N: Finally, I got this posted! I apologize for not posting anything new recently. My university switched to being completely online due to COVID-19 and it has been crazy as my routine changed drastically. Also, I am taking final exams this month and looking for a job, so I don't think my updates will be regular as my life is busy. Trust me, I want to see this through to the end, but it will be slow.**

**This may have ended up as a filler chapter, but I had quite a lot of info about Sarah's family and I rather give some of it now so that when they come in the next chapter, I don't have to explain everything all at once. I hope you enjoy knowing that Gardenia and Hau are part of Sarah's extended family. I've been playing the mobile app Pokemon Masters and Gardenia and Hau have been some of my favorites that I've met in the game, so they got added as a part of Sarah's family. :)**

**Thanks for reading! Also, thank you for all those who have favorite, followed and reviewed this. It makes me super happy to see that people are wanting to know what happens next. A last thank you for those who sent me advice on sites I can use to correct my grammar. It has really helped me with the editing process!**


	9. Meeting the Voss and Char Families

Sarah was sure the hopes were going down the drain the next day when her parents and siblings were all sitting on the couches in Leon's living room. At first, Sarah went down to the lobby to greet them, it was a wonderful reunion. There were hugs, laughter, smiles, and chatter. Now, there was an awkward tension in the room. People were either glaring or staring curiously at Leon from one side of the room. The only person who wasn't participating in the glaring or staring was Louis, who was sitting on a blanket and playing with a doll shaped like an Espurr. Suddenly the silence was broken by Anne.

"I can't take this anymore!" said Anne, "We're supposed to be introducing ourselves! Not staring like he's some strange fossil!"

When Sarah first met Anne, she was quiet and kept to herself. Yet, Anne was someone that once she got comfortable with others, she wouldn't be afraid to speak her opinion. It helped the Voss-Char family to confront problems head on instead of ignoring them.

"Hi Leon, my name's Anne. I'm married to Sarah's brother Sean. And this little cutie on the floor here is our son Louis. I don't know if you remember me, but we met briefly when you visited the gym in Cyllage City in Kalos. Grant's my brother and I worked as one of the gym trainers there before I got married."

"Nice to meet you," said Leon, "That was a couple of years ago when I went there. I liked the rock climbing you had to do to get to battle Grant. That was fun."

"It's definitely my favorite gym in the world," said Anne, "But don't tell that to Gordie. He'll go on about how his gym is better."

"You know that's just Gordie's way of teasing," said Sean, putting a hand on Anne's knee.

"I know," said Anne, "But I remember hearing from Grant that Gordie was having a good time when he visited the Cyllage City gym last year. So, I think your cousin's in denial."

Anne's words seemed to have broken the ice and everyone introduced themselves briefly, but politely. Sarah was going to privately thank Anne later for saying what she said.

"So, what are our plans for today?" asked Rick Char, Sarah's dad.

"Well," said Sarah, "I have to go back to work after lunch, and Leon has to train. But I was thinking we should plan something tonight."

"Well," said Gardenia, "I hope this isn't a problem, but I wanted to go see the stadium in Wyndon at some point. Galar's gym league is very different from Sinnoh's and I've only been to the one in Circhester."

"I can make sure you get into the stadium," said Leon, "I'll have one of the stadium workers give a tour. I would do it myself, but I can't stay on crutches for very long."

"It's understandable," said Charice Voss, Sarah's mum, "You need to make sure you in the best shape for this weekend."

"Let's make sure Melony, Gordie, Jonathan, and Hailey can come," said Sarah, "I think that they would like it."

"Also," said Marie, "I would like to go to the Wyndon Eye in the evening. Could we switch plans so that the stadium tour is during the day?"

Leon looked towards Sarah who said, "I'm fine doing the Wyndon Eye later. I already got a tour of the stadium in preparation for the exhibition match last week so I'll be fine."

"Great!" said Anne.

At that moment Scorbunny and Grookey came quickly into the room, with Sobble plodding behind them. Everyone stared at them for a few moments before Gardenia squealed.

"A grass monkey!"

The baby Pokemon were startled and Sobble held back tears. Sarah got up from her seat and soon had him cuddled in her arms. Gardenia got up from the couch and crouched down carefully in front of the Grookey. As Gardenia gently held out her hand, Grookey used his free had to high five it. Natasha and Sean took interest in the Scorbunny. Scorbunny seemed a little shy at the attention, but she seemed to be open to meet new people and was learning how to fist bump from Sean.

Sarah went over to her parents and introduced Sobble to them.

Her mum smiled and said, "Hello Sobble"

Her dad grinned and said, "Welcome to the family!"

Sarah stared at her father. They didn't know if this Sobble had a family of his own to go back to! Her dad couldn't say things like that.

"Sob?" asked Sobble, who sat up in Sarah's arms and tilted his head to the side.

It took a few moments before Sobble broke out into a smile, which amazed everyone in the room including Scorbunny and Grookey as Sobble was happily chanting, "Sob-ble! Sob-ble!". Sarah's dad laughed and took Sobble from Sarah's arms and held up Sobble like he was Simba.

"Behold your king!" said Sarah's dad.

"Dad!" said Sarah.

Everyone in the room chuckled.

* * *

When Sarah went back to work after lunchtime, everyone was shocked to see her. They did not expect their boss to be back so soon. A lot of co-workers asked if she and the Champion were alright and wanted the scoop on what happened. Sarah answered their questions and then she called for a team meeting to happen as soon as possible.

Soon all the team which consisted of Sarah and ten of her co-workers gathered in a meeting room down the hall from the Galar Gym League Social Media Department room. It was strange considering the team was close to each other and meetings usually were just everyone sitting in their swivel chairs in a circle.

"I know you probably are wondering why I gather you here today," said Sarah.

"Marrwige?" joked Daisy, one of her coworkers, who had an uncanny impression of the priest from _The Princess Bride_.

"No.," said Sarah, "I need to reschedule the days I planned to take off. I will be off on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday."

"But wait, the exhibition match is on Saturday," said Bruce, "We were planning to schedule the interviews with the different gym leaders then and also the format of stickers and hashtags for this year's gym challenge."

"I'm still going to be working," said Sarah, "I just won't be coming into the office. I'm still planning to be in Motostoke by Tuesday afternoon. My interviews with Gordie and Piers are still scheduled on the days we originally planned, we just need to change Gordie's interview to be on Wednesday instead of Tuesday."

"But Pier's interview is on Wednesday," reminded Katerina, who was the one in charge of keeping everyone's schedule on track from interviews to posting regularly on the social media account, and make sure everything was completed on time.

"I know," said Sarah, "But if we do Gordie's interview in the morning we can have enough travel time to still do Pier's interview in the evening."

"But wait a moment, how do we know that Gordie will be okay with that?" asked Adam, one of the videographers.

"Mate, he's her cousin," said Brian, their video editor.

"Oh right," said Adam

"I'm just curious," said Katerina, who looked up from taking notes on her phone, "You're still going to Circhester right? Would it be better to move the interview earlier or keep it the same?

"No, the time's should still work. I'm actually going with Leon to visit his family in Southern Galar," said Sarah.

A brief beat of silence before Dmitri, the co-worker notorious for knowing the current gossip and tea let out a whoop.

"Yes!" he said.

Everyone the team laughed, but then they looked very interested in what Sarah would say next.

"I decided to go with him because I'm worried about Leon and you all know why. Where he's from is a sleepy farming village, so nothing crazy is going to happen, but still all the same…"

"Understandable," said Ryan, "I would be in the same boat if my partner decided to go on another trip right after he nearly died."

Sarah felt relieved. Out of all of her co-workers. Sarah was most worried about how Ryan would react to a change in her plans. Ryan was one of the co-workers that Sarah had the hardest time getting along with as Ryan would've had her job as the head of the social media department if it weren't for Oleana's meddling ways. It seemed though that Ryan understood Sarah's excuse for changing vacation plans.

"Wait, is this the first time you're going to meet the in-laws?" asked Dmitri.

"Dmitri, we're not married," said Sarah, "But yes, it'll be the first time I'll meet his family."

Dmitri grinned, satisfied with the answers.

"Now then, this is not a meeting about my private life," said Sarah, "I wanted to go over the work that we all need to do and see what is best to do in person and what can be done over video chat."

* * *

It was a busy day at work and Sarah was now on the tube, waiting to get to the stop closest to the Wyndon Eye. She had the hood of her windbreaker up and was scrolling aimlessly on social media, hoping that no one would take notice of her. It seemed as if overnight, Sarah Char become famous. So many people sent her DMs asking all about her relationship with the champion. Twitter was a storm trying to sketch out who was the new girlfriend of Galar's undefeated champion. Sarah wanted to delve into it more and see the kind of tweets were being posted about her. She knew that a lot of it would be lies and crap people would say about her, but she was curious to see what they would post.

"Arriving at Wallerboo Station."

The electronic voice announced the stop she needed to get at and Sarah exited with a group of other passengers. The Wallerboo stop was teeming with people and soon Sarah entered a massive queue to get on the exiting escalators. As Sarah got closer to the surface, her Rotom phone suddenly came to her face.

"Roo, I can't see who's contacting me, away from the face."

Roo, her Rotom phone, flipped around and showed off a sad face, as if to say, "Sorry!"

Sarah sighed as she grabbed her Rotom phone and saw that a private number was calling. She debated for a second whether or not to answer, but then decided to answer it.

"Hello, Sarah Char here."

"Hi! It's Leon!"

Sarah nearly dropped her phone in surprise. She and Leon had never exchanged their phone numbers since Oleana's emails were enough before. Sarah came to the end of the escalator and turned left to cross the bridge. She could see the Wyndon Eye towering over the river.

"How…how did you get my phone number?"

"Oh, Melony gave it to me," said Leon.

"Melony?" asked Sarah, "Is she there with you?"

"Yes, she is, along with the rest of your family. We're just waiting to get on our private pod on the Wyndon Eye," said Leon.

"You can do that?"

"Um,…it's special connections as a champion."

"Rose connections?" asked Sarah.

"Yes, anyways…" said Leon.

"HEY, SARAH!"

Sarah stopped walking and looked towards the noise. It was her cousin, Gordie. He was hiding his signature hair under a beanie and had sunglasses on, but Sarah recognized him immediately.

"Gordie!"

Gordie laughed as he hugged Sarah. No one paid attention to them, they were too busy commuting home from work.

"How are you doing?" asked Gordie.

"Great! It's good to see you," said Sarah.

Sarah then realized she was still on the phone with Leon and she checked in to see if he was still on the phone

"So, I guess Voss found you, right?" said Leon.

"Yes," said Sarah

"Well, he knows where to go so see you soon!"

Leon ended the call and Sarah looked towards Gordie.

"So where are we going?" asked Sarah.

"C'mon, I'll show you. I may not like Best, but I got to admit, he gave us a sweet deal and we don't have to wait in line."

"Well, I'm glad you don't hate him," said Sarah.

Gordie huffed.

"I always thought he was a decent lad, but then he's 'dating' my cousin and that's a whole other story."

"Look, I get it you have beef with him, but can we not talk about that? Please? I know that it's not the greatest time of your life with Melony back. Could we talk about something more…upbeat?" said Sarah.

Gordie was silent for a few moments.

"Yeah…I'm not sure how to talk to Mum anymore," said Gordie.

Gordie had a frown on his face, but it disappeared as he shook his head. He then grinned.

"Wait until you hear the stories Hailey and Jonathan have to tell! They got into some crazy battles in Johto! I definitely want to travel there after the end of the gym challenge!"

Sarah sighed, wanting to talk with Gordie more about talking with his mum, but one thing a Voss is good at is avoiding any talk about the issue at hand.

A few minutes later, Gordie and Sarah were at the ticket office at the Wyndon Eye. One of the workers spotted them and came over to them.

"Honored guests of Chairman Rose, come this way!"

Everyone's heads turned towards them and Gordie muttered some choice words to himself. He then took off his hat and sunglasses and shook his hair out. Everyone in the room gasped.

"It's the rock type gym leader!"

"What's he doing here?"

"Is Rose having a special event with the gym leaders?"

"Who's that beside him?"

Gordie then nudged Sarah.

"Hey, Sare. Take off your hood."

Sarah took off her hood and if the crowd was whispering before, they were certainly whispering loudly now.

"Who is she?"

"Wait, I saw it in the news! She's dating the champion!"

"Wait, she the one who saved him from angry Abomnasnow! Wicked!"

"Huh, I know she's cousins with the rock type gym leader, but they look nothing alike!"

Sarah waved at everyone and Gordie gave a smile and put back on his sunglasses. The Wyndon Eye worker led them to go behind the desk, and down the hallway into a room that was decked out for VIP.

"Sarah!"

Sarah was then tackled into a hug by her cousins, Hailey and Jonathan. Sarah had seen them off at the Wyndon airport six months ago when they flew to Johto. That day felt like years ago.

"Hailey! Jon! I'm so glad your back home." said Sarah.

"I know, me too!" said Hailey, "Although, I can't wait to go back to Johto!"

Jonathan laughed.

"You just want to go back to your boyfriend."

Hailey glared at her twin.

"Kenny's not my boyfriend, we're just friends!"

Jonathan then said to Sarah.

"Just you wait, I bet by next year-"

Jonathan then was interrupted by another voice.

"Jonny, please stop teasing your sister."

The three of them and Gordie turned to see Melony, who was smiling at all of them. Her smile faltered into an expression of worry when they set eyes on Gordie. Gordie looked away and then walked towards the window facing the river where Anne and Sean were showing Louis the view. Melony sighed, but then put on a happy expression. At that moment, Sarah realized that Melony was struggling to talk to Gordie as much as Gordie was to talk to Melony.

"Oh my, Sarah!" said Melony, "It's so good to see you."

Melony gave Sarah a hug and Sarah hugged her back. Growing up, Sarah had always looked up to Melony as someone to emulate, especially when she did the gym challenge in Galar. Melony was someone who was at first intimidating, but Sarah knew that her aunt had a soft side shown only to her family and close friends. Melony had been resilient through a lot of tough moments in her life from becoming Circhester's gym leader at a young age to losing her husband suddenly in a work-related accident shortly after adopting the twins. Melony was always determined to keep moving forward and to continue living life. Now with the silence between Gordie and Melony, Sarah couldn't help but remember her aunt after the battle for the Circhester gym, emotionally broken and still, even refusing to get out of bed. It hurt Sarah to see her aunt and cousin still not completely healed from what happened between them. Sarah was certain that if they could at least talk to each other for five minutes, they would be able to find the closure that they needed.

"Me too!" said Sarah, "I hope you like the room at the hotel."

"Well, you know the Chairman," said Melony, "He doesn't want anyone to think of him as ungenerous. But enough about him, let's talk about you! Leon was telling me about what you were doing, and it sounds amazing! Tell me more!"

"Don't worry I only said good things, Sarah."

Leon at some point had come on his crutches to stand beside Sarah. Grookey was sitting on his shoulder, playing with some of Leon's hair. When Grookey saw Sarah, he hopped on to her shoulder and greeted her. Sarah wondered where Scorbunny and Sobble were, but quickly spotted the two of them with her parents. Sarah and Leon didn't have Pokéballs for the three Pokémon as they wanted to see if they could find more information about them from their respective reservation scientists before making the big decision to have them in Pokeballs.

"Oh, I'm sure," said Sarah as she gave Grookey a chin scratch.

"Honest!" said Leon.

Sarah faked gasped, but she smiled afterward to reassure Leon that she believed in him.

"Good," said Sarah, "Work's very stressful right now with the gym challenge starting up, but I'm excited because that means we get to start posting more and creating more content. I'm going to be interviewing Gordie and Piers next week! We are doing special interviews and post them on youtube for the gym leaders to connect more with the fans."

"Oh, that's so exciting!", said Melony, "I think it's good that you are interviewing the two of them. Piers will probably be more willing to talk if it's you."

"What do you mean by that?" said Leon

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but Melony beat her to it.

"You don't know? Piers and Sarah met when they participated in the gym challenge! They've been friends ever since!"

Leon blinked his eyes in surprise as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Huh," said Leon, "I remember Piers competing in the finals, but I don't remember if you made it to the semifinals or not."

"Don't worry!" said Sarah, "I didn't last long in the gym challenge. I couldn't beat Kabu's gym and just gave up after that! It's kind of embarrassing."

"You didn't give up, you-" began Melony

"Melony, please not now," said Sarah.

Melony nodded and gave her a look of understanding mixed with pity. Leon looked between the two of them. Then Sean came over with a quiet Louis who seemed ready to fall asleep in his dad's arms.

"I couldn't help, but overhear," said Sean, "The reason she quit was she decided to do the island trials in Alola instead. It may not be as well known, but it's just as challenging as the gym challenges around the world. Trust me, Z-moves are quite the feat!"

Sarah felt relieved at Sean's explanation and that Sean started a debate between Z-Moves and dynamxing with Melony and Leon. He always seemed to have a way with words and put people at ease. What Sean told Leon was a half-truth, Sarah did participate in the island trials of Alola, but that was not the reason she dropped out of Galar's gym challenge. It was something she didn't like to talk about and only her relatives and closest friends knew why.

Soon a Wyndon Eye worker came in and told them their private pod was ready.

* * *

Sarah had been on the Wyndon Eye twice in her life, once for a school trip when she was ten and another time when she brought Kate, her best friend from uni and now flatmate, to experience the view from the Wyndon Eye for the first time. Yet, Sarah enjoyed her third time as it offered a beautiful view of Wyndon during the night and she had a private pod with her family (plus Leon). It was nice to not have to worry about strangers blocking the view or elbowing her way to get a closer look through the glass walls of the pod.

Sarah was taking her time to look at how the city slowly turned on its lights as the pod went higher in the sky. She was standing close to the glass that she was tempted to get her face closer so she could take in what she was seeing. She looked behind her to check if Leon was alright. He was sitting down in the circle seating arrangement in the center of the pod so that he didn't have to stand on crutches forever. Grookey was asleep on his lap while Scorbunny rested beside him. Sarah's mum had sat down next to Leon, quietly conversing with him as she cradled a snoozing Sobble in her arms. Sarah smiled at the scene, it was quite adorable.

Sarah turned back to look out of the glass. A few minutes later, Sarah felt a tap on her right shoulder and Sarah turned left expecting it to be Marie trying to trick her. Instead, there was no one beside her.

"Got ya!"

Sarah nearly jumped as she realized Marie was behind her.

"Marie!" complained Sarah.

Marie chuckled.

"After all these years, I can still surprise you."

Sarah tried to look angry, but a grin eventually appeared on her face. Marie smirked, knowing that she was forgiven for now. Marie went to Sarah's left side and leaned over the railing.

"Where's Gardenia?" asked Sarah.

"She's busy talking with Natasha," said Marie, "I wanted to see how you were doing squirt."

Sarah wrinkled her nose at the nickname Marie gave her. It just reminded Sarah of her five-year-old self who really wanted a Squirtle and had everyone called her "squirt" in honor of that. No one used the nickname anymore, except for Marie.

"Alright," said Sarah, "Work went surprisingly well. Everyone's supportive of me going to Postwick. But I'm afraid it's more for the tea that they can get. Though most would never say it outright. I love my team though and I know I can rely on them to do their jobs."

"At least none of the big-headed ones you told me about tried to prove you were slacking," said Marie, "You're one of the hardest workers I know and trust me, I've met coordinators who eat, sleep and breathe contests. Even when you were in uni, you really were juggling a lot and yet still came out with a degree and high honors."

"Well, it wasn't easy," said Sarah.

"Of course, anything that we want to achieve requires work and effort," said Marie, "How have you been dealing with the stress? You literally saved someone from dying of frostbite yesterday and now have to work while making sure he doesn't die again. I mean, I don't know all the details, but that's basically what the chairman said, right?"

Sarah looked out at the window. They were almost at the top of the Wyndon Eye.

"In the moment, I knew what to do when Leon fell down at my campsite," said Sarah, "Though since coming back to Wyndon, I feel like I've been busy juggling everything constantly. Although, Leon and I got to spend some time outside with our Pokemon. It was very relaxed and chill."

"I understand," said Marie, "It's how Gardenia relaxes after battling in her gym all day. It's also good for me as my Pokémon don't get much time to play when I'm in the middle of judging a bunch of contests. Especially, Marty, he's a true mischief maker like every Morgrem is. He likes to doddle like he's in primary school on my judge's scorecard when I'm not looking so playing together in the evenings reduces the chances of that happening by a lot."

The sisters then were quiet before Sarah spoke again,

"Marie," said Sarah, "How did you deal with the fame when you became Sinnoh's contest champion?"

Marie let out a deep breath and she placed her hand under her chin, thinking over what Sarah said. When Sarah was five, Marie decided to move in with the grandparents on her father's side in Twinleaf Town and started on her contest journey. Sarah only remembered feeling sad as she missed Marie and remembered seeing broadcasts of her leading up to the finals. Sarah was proud of Marie that she became the contest champion in Sinnoh and held the title for six years, but Sarah never considered the fame aspect that Marie had to deal with until now.

"There's a lot of things I could say about this," said Marie, "First is, don't let what the world thinks become more important what you think. Trust me, you'll get lost easily if you try to please everyone. Second, set boundaries. You need to tell people when they make you uncomfortable, especially the press. If they're arses about that, it's a reflection of themselves, not you. Third, still do what you love. Don't be persuaded by others to do things you don't want to do or that you shouldn't do. For someone reason, contest champions get pushed to modeling or acting as potential side jobs. I didn't want to do that, but I felt pressured too. I'm glad I didn't because I'm much happier working at contests then I would have with wearing Gucci on the runway."

"Fourth, make sure to treat everyone with kindness!" said Gardenia, who had come over to stand by Marie.

"But don't forget to block out the haters!" said Natasha, who had come on Sarah's right side.

"How long have you two been listening?" asked Marie.

"Long enough," said Natasha, "We finished our predictions for who will win Galar Women's Football League this year. I'm biased that Wyndon is going to win because, you know, it's my own team, but Gardenia made some good points on her choice. I have to keep an eye out on the new Turffield team, they got a lot of new talent that could definitely rise to the top."

"Well, fellow Grass gym leaders like to chat and I couldn't help but get the details when Milo mentioned about a new women's football team sharing the stadium in Turffield," said Gardenia, "Also, here's another piece of advice for you Sare. If you need someone to talk to about dealing with fame talk with Leon."

"What?" said Natasha, "She shouldn't need to rely on him. If anything, he owes her for saving his life."

"It's not that," said Gardenia, "The fame Sarah will be dealing with right now is connected with Leon. He has been champion for a long time and probably can help her the most with the problems and concerns she has."

"But," said Natasha who looked around before whispering, "I don't trust him."

"Why?" said Sarah.

Natasha shook her head.

"I'll tell you later," said Natasha, "It's just something I've noticed."

"Okay," said Sarah, wondering what Natasha would tell her.

"It's your choice in the end whether or not to talk to him about concerns," said Gardenia, "But I think it is a good idea. You never know what happens when you open up to someone."

Gardenia then hugged Marie and Marie gave Gardenia a quick kiss.

"Well," said Gardenia, "My situation was different, but you get the point."

* * *

The rest of the Wyndon Eye experience was great and everyone arrived back to the places they were staying for the night safely. Melony was staying at the hotel, and Hailey went with her mum, as she wanted to spend some time with her. Jonathan then offered to stay with Gordie at Leon's flat, joking that he kept his sleeping bag clean just for moments like this.

When everyone went to their respective homes and hotel, Sarah made sure that Gordie and Jonathan were situated in Leon's living room, with Gordie on the couch and Jonathan on the floor with a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag. Sarah was in the kitchen making sure Snom got his midnight snack of some Poke Puffs that were made for ice type Pokemon. It was a gift that Anne brought from Kalos. Snom was currently on his fifth one and looked like he could go for five more before bedtime. Cubchoo was asleep on the counter, her constant snot going in and out of her nose like a bubble waiting to pop.

"This is a nice place," commented Gordie as he sat on the couch.

"You didn't notice it last time?" said Leon, with an edge in his voice.

Leon had come down from the hallway, this time a sleepy Sobble chilling on his head. Sarah would have taken a picture of it, if it weren't for the imaginary daggers Leon was glaring at Gordie with.

"Okay, I get it. I shouldn't have done what I've done," said Gordie.

"If you bring out Coalassol again, I wouldn't hesitate to leave you outside," said Leon.

"Dude what?!" said Jonathan, ready to defend his brother.

"Jon, don't worry." said Gordie, "I almost wrecked his flat the last time I was here. I'm already pushing his limits on hospitality as it is."

Leon didn't say anything else. He nodded his head and moved on his crutches towards the balcony.

"Sare? Could you open the door for me?" asked Leon.

"Sure," said Sarah.

Sarah came over and opened the door for him. She then stopped Leon before he could exit.

"Could I get Sobble off your head? I don't want him to get bonked on the way out."

"Sure, that would be great," said Leon.

Sarah went on her tiptoes to reach Sobble and Leon tilted his head slightly to make it easier for her to get Sobble. Sobble had a firm grip on Leon's purple hair, but Sarah patiently coaxed Sobble's suction like hands off of his hair.

"Thanks," said Leon.

"No problem."

Sarah brought Sobble close to her like a baby with his head tucked close to her neck. Leon went out on the balcony and Sarah followed him. She went to stand beside him, looking out at the Wyndon skyline at night.

"It's good you came out here too, 'cause we need to talk," said Leon, "Rose got in contact with the reservation scientists."

Sarah's eyes widened and she turned to look at Leon.

"That's great," said Sarah, "When can we meet them?"

"The scientists want to meet tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" said Sarah in surprise, "So soon?"

"Rose told me that the moment the scientists at the reservations heard about Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey, they immediately requested to see them as soon as possible. Apparently, none of them are supposed to be outside reservation lines."

"Oh my Arceus," said Sarah, "They must have received such a shock to hear such news."

"I know," said Leon, "Rose wanted this meeting to happen the moment they arrived, but I told him you wouldn't get off work until later. I was able to get the meeting to be after your parents leave. We'll go to Rose Tower from the train station."

Sarah was shocked. She was taken aback at the lengths Leon must have gone to make sure that she could come and be there too.

"Don't worry, Rose was easy to convince. He's supportive of our…friendship in his own way."

"Oh, I'm sure," said Sarah sarcastically,

Sarah then cleared her throat and smiled at Leon, hoping that he realized her sarcasm was meant for the Chairman and not for him.

"But thank you Leon for making sure that I'll be able to go too."

"It's not a problem," said Leon, "You've been the one to take care of them the most. I'm sure the scientists would appreciate your input over mine."

Sarah looked up at the sky that was dark but had no stars due to the light pollution coming from Wyndon.

"What do you think will happen to them?" asked Sarah.

She looked down at the Sobble sleeping soundly. She remembered last night of her and Leon of helping Sobble, Grookey, and Scorbunny with whatever trauma was plaguing them. She comforted a distressed Sobble crying so hard that Sarah knew it was more than just the boogie man and soothed a Scorbunny who was rocking back and forth with a listless expression on her face. Leon had stopped Grookey from whacking himself with his stick. Sarah knew that whatever they went through was horrible if they were so distressed. Yet, the three of them seemed so happy to be with her and Leon. They even warmed up to her family in a short amount of time. Sarah was beginning to worry about what that would be like again for them to suddenly be separated from some comfort they had right now in their lives. Also, she didn't want to say it out loud, but she would miss the three of them terribly if they had to go.

"I don't know," said Leon, "I actually talked with your dad about it. He assured me that the scientists at these reservations truly care about the Pokémon they are caring for, including their mental health. "

"I'm glad Dad was able to reassure you. He's pretty good at networking and if it's Pokémon research and care, he'll definitely know them." said Sarah, "He's a pretty good judge of character."

Leon put his weight on his crutches, looking at Sarah and nodding along to what she was saying. There was silence between the two of them, but it was comfortable. Then there was a knock on the glass doors behind them, the two of them turned and saw that it was Jonathan holding out a squealing Snom at arm's length.

"Sarah? Sorry to interrupt your moment, but I tried to get Snom to stop eating the Poke Puffs, but he won't stop squealing because I locked them away in a cupboard."

Sarah's dad then came from behind Jonathan and tapped him on the shoulder. He was holding the sleeping Cubchoo in one of his arms and held out his free hand, indicating to Jonathan to hand over the Snom. The Snom was placed in Rick's hand and Rick held up the Snom to his face. The Snom immediately stopped squealing once it was face to face with Rick.

"Hello there," said Rick, "What ya squirming there for?"

"Snom! Snom!" complained Snom as it clasped his pincers together.

"Ah, you wanted to eat some more huh?" said Rick, "Well, I know those Poké Puffs are good, but if you wait until morning, I will make you something even better."

"Snom?!"

Rick smiled as Snom looked at him, eager to hear what Rick had to say next.

"Yes, I'll tell you about it. Come let's get you and your sister here to bed."

Rick then walked away, the Snom's eyes closed in contentment as Rick was chatting with Snom.

"I can see why Rick's an ice type specialist," said Leon.

"I'm sorry Sarah," said Jonathan, "I should be better at dealing with ice types, but I'm not."

"Jon, I've lived with my dad for most of my life and I still don't know how he does what he does," said Sarah, "He's literally going to give Snom some ice sprinkled with sugar tomorrow and Snom is going to eat it like it's some good curry. I know it because I've seen it. Dad knows how to talk it up like it's the best meal ever."

Jonathan sighed.

"I'm going to bed," said Jonathan, "I didn't sleep at all on the flight and I'm absolutely knackered. I want to be awake during the match tomorrow."

"But the exhibition match isn't tomorrow, it's the day after tomorrow," said Sarah.

"Oh, yeah, right." said Jonathan quickly, "I meant the one between Leon and Gordie."

Sarah then looked at Leon, who wasn't looking at her.

"Leon, since when did you have a match with Gordie planned?"

"Oh, it came up when they were touring the stadium. Sobble and the rest of them became really curious after the guide showed a video of one of my battles. The only way to calm them down afterward was Gordie promising them a battle. I just happened to be the most qualified to battle him in the room at the time, so there's a battle."

"But Leon, you're injured."

"Sare, we'll be doing it Kanto style. No dynamaxing at all and it'll be a short one as we can only put in one Pokemon."

"Leon, you'll need to run around to shout out the moves you want Charizard to do."

"Well between you and me…and Jonathan."

Jonathan had a startled look on his face and quickly said, "I think I should go."

"No stay." said Sarah, out of not wanting for Jonathan to feel like he was somehow a third wheel, "I trust Jonathan not to spill the beans. As long as it isn't an illegal maneuver or something."

"Thanks for the support Sare, but I'm on Gordie's side and I would ruin a good match with insider information," said Jonathan.

Jonathan then walked inside and got into his sleeping bag.

"I'm not using Charizard tomorrow, because that's too obvious," said Leon, "But I'm using another one of my Pokémon who has never failed me before.

"I don't doubt you or your Pokémon Leon," said Sarah, "It's just…"

"Just what?" said a new voice.

At that point, Gordie had come back into the living room, dressed in pajamas and his hair up in a man bun.

"It's just…your man bun's atrocious Gordie," said Sarah with a smirk.

Leon chuckled.

Gordie scoffed.

"What do you mean? I'm a fashion icon!" said Gordie, "We all know who has the worse sense of fashion."

Gordie then looked towards Leon and Leon scowled back at him.

"I'm going to bed," said Leon, "Also, Sare, you can invite your co-workers. The match will be in the afternoon at 1."

Leon then moved on his crutches to go inside. Gordie, stepped to the side to let him in.

"So," said Gordie, "I guess you heard about the match I have again Best tomorrow, right? Are you going to come?"

"Of course," said Sarah, "What kind of cousin would I be?"

* * *

**A/N: And I'm back!**

**I apologize for not posting anything in May. Since I last posted I finished school, moved back home with my parents, and started my internship online. Being at home and doing an international internship online was a lot of adjustment and stress. There was stress at home because my brother got married last week and there was a lot of changing of plans due to COVID-19. But he's married now and we're happy about that!**

**I didn't write for a while because a lot was going on. Yet during the past month, GMPC was on my mind and I kept wanting to write it more.**

**I think that was good because I now have a spreadsheet on my computer dedicated to the storyline of GMPC.**

**I'm so glad to get this chapter out there! We get to meet Sarah's amazing family! Charice and Rick are awesome people along with their children and their partners. Marie is one of my favorites and I end up writing two separate one-shots about her. One about how she came out as a lesbian and the other about how she became friends with Wallace. Also, I hope the gym leader connections aren't too annoying. How Sean and Anne met was due to a rock-climbing expedition in Unova led by Grant. Marie met Gardenia because Fantina more or less set them up. I even was going to have the boy Jonathan was teasing Hailey about to be Bugsy (he would be 19, a year older than the twins), but I decided it would be too odd that the family knows so many of the gym leaders worldwide.**

**And yes. Piers and Sarah did meet during the gym challenges. I have a one shot about how they met and it's adorable! I have been actually writing a lot of one shots on the side about the different characters in GMPC and I'm going to be posting them little by little as I continue this main fanfic. Piers is my favorite character from Sword and Shield (sorry Leon, but a Rockstar gym leader is just super cool) and it's a shame that Gamefreak did not have at least a singing voice for Piers.**

**I know this a long author note and if you are still reading this, thank you for reading this chapter and the note too! I hope to have the next chapter posted soon!**


	10. A Match Between Gordie and Leon!

"This is the most exciting day of my life!"

That was what Ryan said when Sarah invited her co-workers to come to the match between Gordie and Leon. Everyone on the team was shocked as Ryan was usually well-composed. It seemed that Ryan was a big fan of the gym challenge (Well they all were in some way, but it seemed that Ryan was a super fan.)

"Not even the day when your partner moved in with you?" said Adam dryly.

Ryan paused before saying, "Don't tell Nick I said that."

So that was how Sarah and her ten co-workers took their lunch break to go over to the practice fields at the Wyndon stadium. Everyone was bursting with excitement when they walked through the doors. The practice field was decorated to the bare minimum, with white walls, a floor with well-kept grass, and some stands high above the field. As they walked towards the stands, Sarah heard her co-workers whispering.

"Wait, is that Gardenia Sage?"

"And her girlfriend Marie Rowan is here too!

What?!"

"Who are the rest of the people in the stands?"

Sarah turned around at the last question and smiled nicely.

"Everyone in the stands is my family! Would you like to meet them?"

Some of her co-workers looked puzzled, but they all agreed that they would like to meet her family. As they walked up the stands, it was Sarah's parents who stood up first and came down. Her mum was holding Cubchoo in her arms while Snom was on her dad's head. Her dad put Snom on his shoulder before walking down the steps.

"Alola! My name's Rick Char. I'm Sarah's dad! It's a pleasure to meet you all!"

"Hello Mr. Char!" said Dmitri with a smile while the other co-workers said "Hi,"

"And I'm her mum Charice Voss. We have heard a lot from Sarah about what you all do, and I hope that everything's going well?"

"Oh yes, Ms. Voss! Everything's going alright!" said Katerina.

"Of course, Kat. We would be chaos without the schedules and due dates you set for us," teased Brian.

"Mum, Dad, let me introduce you to the best team in Galar!" said Sarah.

"Thanks, girl!" said Daisy.

Soon Sarah facilitated the introductions and they all climbed up the stairs to where everyone is sitting. As they got close, her co-workers were getting excited and nervous as they got closer to Gardenia playing pattycake with Grookey which caused Maia, the person whose work consisted of constantly checking for copyrights and privacy issues, to squeal. It was a shock to everyone especially her co-workers as Maia tended to keep quiet unless they had a problem with infringing on copyrights or someone's privacy.

"Sorry," said Maia.

"Oh, no need to worry about that! I also think this Grookey is very cute," said Gardenia

Gardenia walked towards the group, and Grookey ran beside her on the bench. He greeted everyone with a cry of "Groo-key!". When Grookey saw Sarah he jumped off the bench and ran towards her. He tugged on her pants and lifted up his arms.

"You want up? Alright!" said Sarah.

Sarah was beginning to pick him up when Cubchoo squirmed in her mum's arms and Snom began crawling down Rick's arm as fast as he could.

Rick laughed at the tickling sensation of Snom's walking feet on his arm and he lifted his arm up so Snom could be eye level with Sarah.

"I think they want up too," said Rick.

Sarah's mouth went in a straight line, but she picked up Grookey and then took Cubchoo from her mum. Cubchoo let out a brief of relief as her snot came dangerously close to falling all over Sarah's arm. Snom then leaped off of Rick's arm high in the air and was about to land on Sarah's face, but her dad caught him before that could happen.

"Snom, what did I saw about jumping like that," said her dad

Snom talked and it looked like he was pouting at that moment.

"Hmm… I thought so," said her dad, "Don't worry wait your turn and you'll get your chance."

Sarah's co-workers seemed to have forgotten that they hadn't talked to Marie Rowan yet because they were focused on the Pokemon.

"Are these the Pokemon you saved while protecting Leon from Abomnasnow with your bare hands?" asked Daisy.

"Well, some I found, and there's some that Leon found. Just to clarify, I saw Leon after he had the Abaomnasnow attack and I don't think I could have survived an angry one on my own," said Sarah, "Now where's Scorbunny and Sobble?"

As if on cue Scorbunny came running up the stairs, followed by a Ryan with a mobile phone and Natasha following behind yelling at him.

"I just got her to calm down!" said Natasha, "Do you know how long it took?"

"This is amazing!" said Ryan totally oblivious to his surroundings.

Scorbunny stopped in front of Sarah and gave her a hug on her left leg. Scorbunny then wiped her nose and looked around her and realized that there were more people. Scorbunny became nervous and ran to Rick and hid behind his leg.

"Come here little rabbit!" said Ryan.

"No," said Sarah, "She doesn't do well with people she doesn't know."

Ryan seemed that he wanted to protest but was cut off by Adam.

"Ryan, put down the phone," said Adam, "I rather no scare the poor Scorbunny. It looks like it'll pass out."

"It's important to get their consent before you take their photos," said Eve one of the team's content creators, "Wild or not it's proper courtesy. Anyone here can tell you that."

"But-," said Ryan.

"Sarah," said Katerina, "Can you introduce us to the rest of your family?"

Sarah did and introduced them to Sobble (who was hiding under Louis' baby carriage) Sean, Anne, Louis, Natasha, and Marie. Her co-workers were surprised to find out that Marie Rowan was her half-sister.

"How's that possible?" asked Brian, "She's white and you're not."

Sarah stiffened. She had gotten those comments a lot in her life whenever people found out she had a white half-sister. Even with Sean and Natasha, people would ask Sarah why she had a lighter skin tone then they did. It just seemed that no one could believe Sarah was related to her siblings.

"Well first off, Sare here is my half-sister through our mother," explained Marie, "My biological father was from Sinnoh and he was mixed race."

"Oh, that makes sense," said Brian, "Huh, what a modern family."

"Hey, guys! Look who just came in!" shouted Dmitri.

Everyone turned to see Leon walking in on his crutches with two other people. One of them was the Hammerlocke gym leader Raihan. Raihan was in his street clothes, with black jeans, a light blue bomber jacket, and white trainers. Raihan was laughing at something Leon said. There was also a black woman in a pink dress and grey jean jacket walking beside the two men that Sarah recognized instantly.

"Kate!" shouted Sarah.

Sarah luckily wasn't carrying any Pokémon at the time. She took off on a sprint to get on the field and greet her friend and roommate Kate by tackling her into a hug.

"Oof!" said Kate, "I thought Gordie and the Champion were supposed to battle today, not us!"

Sarah laughed and said, "I missed you!"

"I missed you too! Don't get me wrong it's been fun to have Marie and Gardenia over, but you were definitely missed," said Kate.

"I'm so glad you're here, but don't you have work?" asked Sarah.

"I believe that's my doing," said a new voice.

Sarah looked behind Kate to look at Raihan and then she had to crane her neck a bit to look at his face. She knew that Raihan was very tall, but actually being with Raihan in person made her realize how he would easily tower over anyone. It made it even more fitting that a Duralodon was the Gigantimax Pokemon he used in battle.

"It's nice to meet ya Sarah!" said Raihan, "I can't believe we haven't met yet with Gordie being your cousin, Piers our mutual friend, and the fact that you and Leon met at my birthday party! Also, you're the roommate to the best archive librarian in Hammerlocke!"

"Oh hush Raihan," said Kate, "It is strange how that happened, but did you know that Leon and Sarah actually met before your birthday?" said Kate with a smirk.

"What?!" said Raihan, "How do I not know this! No, I must have missed something. Is this true Sare? Wait, is it alright if I call you that?"

"Sure!" said Sarah, "I guess your friends with my best friend Kate here."

Raihan smiled.

"Yes," said Raihan, "As a loyal sponsor of Hammerlocke Archives and an amateur historian, I think I make Kate's work more interesting."

Kate rolled her eyes.

"Also, he also causes all the old people that work with me to ship me and him. They keep expecting him to ask me out! We're just friends!" said Kate.

Raihan shrugged.

"Can't help it that I have an effect on people."

"No, Raihan you just like the drama that comes from it."

During Kate and Raihan's banter, Leon had come over them and spoke directly at Sarah.

"Hello love, how was work?"

Sarah was surprised at Leon using a term of endearment, but let it slide as she was aware that it was all a part of acting like a couple. She didn't miss the look of surprise that Raihan and Kate shared as if to say, "When did this become a thing?". Sarah had told Kate about the contract and she guessed that Raihan knew about the contract from Leon.

"It's been good. Everyone was so excited to come so we worked hard so we could take the time to enjoy it. "

"Well, they seem happy to be here," said Leon.

Sarah turned around to see every one of her co-workers with their phones out, ready to take pictures. It seemed that Daisy was recording a video as she got everyone's attention and they all start to wave at the camera.

"It's not every day you get to see a gym match for free." said Gordie who had crossed the opposite of the field to the group, "Best, are you ready?"

"It looks like my chair arrived, but I think it won't be necessary as I'll be on my feet. How can I sit down during a battle?" said Leon.

Gordie smirked.

"As long as you don't fall flat on your face," said Gordie, "Just don't want you twisting another ankle on some rocks again."

"Annnnnnddddd I think that's it's time we go to the stands," said Raihan, "What do you say, ladies?"

"Of course, good sir!" said Kate putting on a posh accent.

"Ah! Thank you, my fair lady! Society insists I offer an arm to you." said Raihan in a ridiculous posh accent and then bowed to Kate.

Raihan and Kate then laughed while everyone else smiled despite not knowing what was going on. Sarah was surprised at how comfortable Kate and Raihan were around each other. Kate did mention that Raihan would sometimes visit the archives on Mondays as that was his day off from being a gym leader and some of the funny things he would say, but Sarah didn't realize that also meant that they became friends too. Sarah, Kate, and Raihan walked back at the stands while Raihan began a game of 20 questions so that he could get to know Sarah. He asked some basic ones such as favorite color and food, but Sarah had to laugh at the questions of whether she would want feet like a Corvinight or claws like a Crabrawler for the rest of her life. Sarah knew from the stories that Gordie and Piers had told her that it was always fun to be around Raihan. Raihan still continued the game when they got to the stands. The game stopped when the doors to the practice pitch swung open and Melony, Jonathan and Hailey walked in.

Everyone stared at the group, Sarah's co-workers began to whisper excitedly amongst each other about the ex-gym leader of Circhester being present. Raihan was the one only who acknowledged Melony.

"Melony!" shouted Raihan.

Melony looked at Raihan and gave him a wave.

Raihan went to greet Melony with a hug. Melony seemed pleased to see Raihan as she teased him about something. Raihan also talked with Jonathan and Hailey who seemed to be happy to talk to him. Sarah then turned to her friend Kate to talk with her.

"So," said Sarah, "I didn't know you and Raihan were good friends."

"Well, that's a recent thing," said Kate, "We would chat sometimes when he needing my help find a source or to get permission into some of the older things that we have in the Archives. He came up to me last week to confront me about how I knew you."

"Me?" asked Sarah.

"He found your Instagram profile," said Kate, "Since it's public, he found me in some of your pictures and was surprised to find out that I'm your roommate. He said that he found out during a recent trip to the Unova region and was mad that he couldn't call me and ask me about it. It's was actually kind of amusing to see him be so frustrated about it! Like woah, chill! It's not the end of the world!"

"Couldn't he have slid into your DMs?" asked Sarah.

"You know me," said Kate, "I only have social media to see what my friends are doing. That's not the best way to reach me."

Sarah wanted to ask more questions as she was curious to know how much Raihan found out about her through Kate, but then she heard the chatter of some Pokémon which made her focus on the five baby Pokémon. Cubchoo, Snom, Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey had all ventured down to the bottom of the stands. They clung on the safety railing, wanting to get as close as possible to the action as they could.

"Hey, I got an idea, would you like to meet my new Pokémon?" said Sarah.

"Um, yes! Why wouldn't I?"

After Kate was introduced, she and Sarah decided they would join the little ones. Sarah sat to the right while Kate sat to the left. Grookey seemed to be excited to meet someone new while Cubchoo crawled right into Sarah's lap and then clapped her paws together in excitement.

"Blimey," said Dmitri, "They all really like you."

"It's so cute!" said Maia, "Also, it's cool that you have a way with Pokémon. Wait, is that Sobble coming towards me?"

And yes. Sobble was walking towards her and when he stopped, he looked up at Maia.

"Maia," said Sarah, "Don't fangirl right now. Sobble is very cautious and gets spooked at fast motions or loud noises."

Maia nodded her head, but her facial expression showed how she was so happy right now. Sobble played with the aglet of one of her shoelaces and looked up to see Maia's beaming face. Sobble then let out a noise before deciding to head back. Maia let out a breath that she was holding before saying quietly:

"Darn, I didn't take a picture."

"That's okay, I got it on my video," said Daisy, "I can airdrop the clip to you later."

"Thanks!" said Maia.

Raihan had come back over to the group. Sarah's co-workers kept their cool around the Dragon gym leader, but he smirked as if he knew that deep on the inside, they were all freaking out at seeing him.

"Hey Sare, Kate, can I sit with you?" asked Raihan.

"Sure!" said Sarah and Kate simultaneously.

"Hmm…" said Raihan, "I think some Pokemon want the front row, so I'll sit behind you. Hello there, is the seat by you taken?

The question was directed towards Maia, who took her small backpack from beside her and gestured at the open space. Raihan sat down and stretched out his legs. He conversed with Maia a bit asking about who she was and what she did for work while everyone else on the social media team pretended not to listen in but failed, their faces gave it away. A sound of a microphone being turned on caught everyone's attention. A man in an official league referee uniform cleared his throat before he spoke into the microphone.

"Welcome family and friends of the Circhester gym leader Gordie and the Champion of Galar Leon! Today we will be holding a practice match and I'll be the one to referee it. Some rules have been set. First off, this match will be done in Kanto style. That means there is no Gigantimaxing or Dynamxing allowed. Second, one Pokémon will be used. Both trainers have submitted their choice to me beforehand and I have checked to make sure no cheats have been used. Third, a temporary barrier has been set up on the ring to ensure that both trainers will not receive any damage. Trainers! Are you ready?"

"Yes!" shouted Leon.

Gordie nodded his head and pushed up his sunglasses.

"And we begin in one…two...THREE!"

Leon sat down in a chair and did an underhand throw of an Ultra ball as Gordie did a backflip while throwing out his Pokeball. There was a loud clicking sound, followed by a wooshing sound as the Pokemon appeared on the pitch. Gordie had let out his Tyranitar who roared causing everyone in the stands to cheer. Leon had let out his Haxorus, who stomped on the ground before shaking its head.

"What, no Charizard?!" said Ryan.

"Lee has more Pokémon than his Charizard mate!" shouted Raihan.

Everyone laughed and Ryan seemed a little embarrassed. It certainly wasn't his day and was making a fool of himself.

"Haxorus!" shouted Leon, "Sting him!"

"Tyranitar! Show them the strength of a pseudodragon!" shouted Gordie.

Tyranitar roared again as Haxorus ran towards him. Haxours' claws began to drip with dark purple poison. Before Haxorus could reach Tyarnitar, Tyranitar stopped his right foot hard into the ground causing the ground beneath to rumble until a big rock came out and punched Haxorus in its face. Haxours screeched and slashed at the rock with its head. The Haxorus successfully cut on the rock before Tyranitar did his next move, Ice Beam.

"No!" shouted Maia behind Sarah, "This is bad!"

"Ice types are a Dragon's weakness," commented Daisy as if she was in the stadium's commentator booth, "Praise Lord Helix 'cause Haxorus is taking that attack like a champ!"

"But will it be enough for the Axe Jaw Pokemon?!" asked Dmitri in his presenter's voice he put on for the Youtube channel.

Haxorus indeed took the Ice Beam head-on. Ice particles were lodged into its metallic scales. Despite this, Haxorus pressed on forward, letting out a cry and swiped at the Tyranitar. The Tyranitar twisted away, but Haxorus was still able to slash Tyranitar's side. The slash combined with poison created three wounds that were bubbling with a purple gooey poison.

"Good work Haxorus!" shouted Leon, who was standing up, careful not to put his weight on the foot with the healing ankle.

"Shake it off T-tar!" shouted Gordie.

Tyranitar moaned, but he shook and stomped. It caused the walls around them to vibrate. Leon collapsed back into his chair, wincing on impact, but shouted for his Haxorus to stay close and be careful.

The Pokémon on the stands had various reactions to what was going on. Grookey and Snom were making noise clapping their hands and pincers respectively. Scorbunny was jumping up and down causing burn marks on the metal of the stands. Sobble was quietly observing but occasionally squirted water on Scorbunny's feet to stop it from jumping a hole through the stand. Cubchoo seemed to be nervous, as it hid her head in her paws. Sarah whispered to the Cubchoo, reassuring her that it will be alright, this battle was for fun and the Pokemon will be taken to be healed after it's all over.

On the pitch, Gordie was smirking and spun around in the air with a high kick before landing. He pushed his glasses down to look at Leon.

"Are you ready to give up Best?!" shouted Gordie.

Leon was standing up, using one crutch as he leaned on his good foot. His face was scrunched up in concentration with his mouth in a grimace.

"C'mon Leon!" shouted Raihan impatiently, "Hurry up and win! I'm the one who should break your winning streak not him!"

If Leon had heard Raihan's shout, he didn't acknowledge it.

"Haxorus! Let's shake things up! Get ready to rumble!" shouted Leon.

Gordie shouted to Tyranitar to do another Ice Beam, but it was too late. Haxorus stood tall and spun around and landed with a big stomp as it smacked its tail hard on the ground. Soon the whole pitch was shaking. The stands were sturdy, but they still vibrated a lot. Sarah quickly grabbed Scorbunny who almost fell over the railing in surprise and looked over to see that Kate had grabbed Grookey and had saved him from falling on the pitch. Snom used his silk to create a stick web that connected him to the stands. Sobble braced for the impact, by staying low and using his suction cup like digits to anchor himself.

"Hang in their big boy!" shouted Gordie.

Tyrantiar looked dazed and confused, wobbling back and forth. When Tyranitar locked eyes on Haxorus, he took a step forward, but then winced. The second of hesitation was enough for Leon to grin as he let out the next command.

"Haxorus! Iron Tail!"

Haxorus's tail began to glow with a silver sheen and Haxorus swung it around quickly. As the tail came close to Tyranitar, Haxorus let out a screech that echoed against the walls of the practice pitch. A loud clinging noise followed as the move made contact on Tyranitar's body. Tyranitar roared in pain as it fell on the ground. This time, Tyranitar couldn't get up off the ground from the powerful Iron Tail move. He writhed from the poison Haxorus inflicted upon him earlier. That was when Tyranitar got knocked out as he splayed out on his stomach awkwardly and his eyes looking dazed.

"Tyranitar return!"

Tyranitar returned to his Pokéball as everyone clapped and cheered. The referee seemed to be happy as it declared Leon the winner. Haxorus walked back over to Leon who gave it a hug.

Haxorus looked over at the crowd and then looked straight at Sarah, before pointing at her and talking to Leon. Leon said something back to Haxorus and went to get his other crutch before coming to the stands. Sarah turned her head to the left to see that Gordie was about to leave the pitch, but her family had come to talk to him. Melony reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off before slamming the door open on his way to the locker room. Sarah frowned as she wondered what happened.

"Now let's give it up for the champion of Galar!"

Dmitri's shout along with her coworkers' cheers brought Sarah's focus to what was happening in front of her which was Leon waving to everyone before stopping in front of Sarah.

"Amazing battle to the both of you!" said Sarah.

Haxorus preened as Leon smiled.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem," said Sarah.

Haxorus then looked at Leon and tilted its head to the side.

"Oh sorry. Haxorus this is my girlfriend Sarah."

Haxorus let out a startled noise, before lumbering over to Sarah. Cubchoo got so startled that she sneezed, and her snot ended up on Haxorus' face. Haxorus reared back in surprise, but Leon was soon comforting Haxorus.

"Easy there, girl," said Leon, "Stand still and we'll get you cleaned up."

The referee grabbed a towel from the table by the water fountain as he rushed to give it to Leon. Leon was trying to balance on his crutches while cleaning the face of a disgruntled Haxorus. Raihan had come down to the pitch at some point offering to help Leon. Leon declined so Raihan took a step back.

"Haxorus, I'm so sorry," said Sarah.

Haxorus snorted, whether it was a response to Leon wiping the snot off her face or to Sarah's apology, it wasn't clear. After Haxorus' face was cleaned, she looked at Cubchoo and her eyes softened. Cubchoo trembled, but Haxrous said something that caused the Cubchoo to calm down. Cubchoo even let out sounds to indicated she wasn't nervous anymore around Haxours. Haxorus came over and soon was close enough for Haxorus to pat her hand on Sarah's knee and to look at her closely.

"She's saying thank you for saving me," said Leon.

Sarah nodded her head. Haxorus beamed and then walked back over to Leon. She made a hand motion and Leon grabbed the Ultra ball from the pocket of his joggers and let Haxorus return. Leon looked at Sarah, but the eye contact was broken when Raihan slung his arm around Leon's shoulders.

"Now then," said Raihan, "What's next?"

* * *

Sarah and her co-workers went back to work, but it seemed that all they could talk about was the match they saw. The battle was short but exciting. It was interesting for Sarah to see how her co-workers broke down the battle based on their skill. Adam and Brian, along with the photographers were talking about the best angle to capture Haxorus doing the move Earthquake. Daisy and Dmitri were speaking a mile a minute. Ryan who had posted footage on social media was counting off the views and sharing the comments people left. Eve and the other content creator were talking about potential posts they could create to hype up the upcoming gym challenge. Maia and Katerina seemed the only one focused on work but would comment every once in a while, about something someone said. By the end of the day, everyone was happy and looking forward to tomorrow as it was the exhibition match tomorrow.

"Now make sure to go home and get rest everyone," said Katerina, "We have a big day tomorrow."

"Yes," said Sarah, "I think we're ready for tomorrow and I can't wait to work on our first match together."

The rest of the team agreed.

"Thanks for invited us to the match, Sarah," said Maia, "It was a lot of fun!"

"Well, it was Leon who told me that you were all welcomed to go," said Sarah, "I'm glad you all came!"

"Wow, that certainly makes me feel special," said Ryan.

Everyone looked at him wondering if Ryan was being sarcastic or not.

"I'm serious! It's an honor to be invited by the champion to watch him battle," said Ryan.

"That's because his girlfriend works with us," said Brian.

"Well, I have to head out to get my parents to the train station," said Sarah, "I'll see you all tomorrow bright and early at the stadium."

"Bye Sarah!" said everyone.

Sarah walked quickly back to Leon's flat building that was only a ten-minute walk away from her work. As she walked, she heard the sound of a thousand shutters go off. She continued walking ahead of her, afraid to see how many of the paparazzi were following her. She ignored the people walking in the opposite direction looking confused and trying to figure out why she had a press entourage. Sarah couldn't help but think that if she weren't the champion's girlfriend she would be walking home peacefully without worry. When she arrived at the lobby, she could have hugged Remi who already had Growlithes out to keep back the press.

"First time having the paparazzi follow you?" asked Remi.

"No, but it's the first time for them to follow me and only me," said Sarah.

The elevator opened and it was Leon, her parents, and the baby Pokemon.

"Monsieurs et madames, your ride will be arriving here shortly!" said Remi, "I just got a call from Macro Cosmos!"

The ride to the train station was uneventful, besides the fact that they went through the back entrance onto the station floor to attract the least amount of attention. They said goodbye to Sarah's parents along with the Cubchoo and Snom. Sarah would have loved to have taken them with her, but she did not have the time to give them the care she needed. Her dad agreed with her and decided to bring them to his lab where they would be taken care of and get to be in eternal winter, the environment they thrived in the best.

Since Leon decided it would be best to wait in the car with Marcus the Macro Cosmos worker who had come to pick them up, it was only Sarah, Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey who went to say goodbye. Sarah stood on the platform, waving at the train her parents were on until it disappeared. Sarah had also brought the Sobble, Scorbunny, and Grookey with them and they were sad to see them go, but they still gave Cubchoo and Snom hugs and said their goodbyes When they got back to the car. Sarah and Leon sat in the back while the Pokemon sat in between them.

"Off to meet the scientists," said Marcus.

The drive was to the University of Wyndon which also happened to by Sarah' alma mater. The location was a surprise as Leon and Sarah expected the meeting to be at Rose Tower, but Marcus explained that the reservation scientists needed the facilities the university offered to observe the Pokemon. Sarah looked out the window as she recognized some of the buildings. She did point out the Communication building to Leon where she spent hours researching media trends and editing videos for homework. When they arrived, Sarah recognized it to be the Biological Sciences building. Her dad would often be a guest lecturer here and she would meet up with him after he was finished to grab some food before he headed back to Circhester.

The building was lit up and quiet as they went in. Marcus led Sarah, Leon, and the Pokemon to the back and opened a light blue door with a sign saying "Observation Lab" in black letters. As Marcus opened the door they were greeted by several people in lab coats, their Indeedee assistants, Chairman Rose and Oleana. The most out of place person there was a man in a brown trench coat and a Rillaboom. The Rillaboom hurried over to them and Grookey ran up to the Rillaboom who picked him up and held him close.

"Don't worry!" said one of the scientists, "This Rillaboom is this Grookey's grandfather."

Sarah and Leon looked at each other in surprise.

The Grookey had a grandfather?

"Grookey!"

The shout came from a small boy who appeared behind the scientist that was previously speaking. Grookey seemed to be excited to see the boy as much as the boy was to see him. Rillaboom let his grandson down to be reunited with his human friend.

The boy picked up Grookey and held him close

"I'm so glad you're okay!" said the little boy with tears in his eyes, "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, but I'm so glad you're safe!"

Grookey let out a noise of agreement and was trying to wipe the boy's tears away.

"What a touching moment!" said Rose.

Most of the scientists looked at Rose with a brief look of frustration, but then focused on Leon and Sarah. The first to introduce himself was Dr. Everton who was over the reservation of the Grookey line that was located north of Turffield. The second was an older man who seemed to be quite nervous as he kept wiping his glasses. He was able to spit out that he was Dr. Hill over the Sobble line reservation in the marshlands close to the southern farming villages. The third was a woman named Dr. Barton who was over the newest of the reservations, this one being for the Scorbunny line that was located in the hot deserts surrounding Stow-On-Side.

Everyone then turned in the room to look at the man in the trench coat whose face seemed to be stuck in a frown and had yet to say a word. After a few moments of silence, the man finally spoke.

"I guess I need to introduce myself. My name is Looker. I'm a part of the International Police. Now, can you tell me how exactly you found these three Pokémon?"

* * *

**A/N: First things first, thank you for the guest reviewer who keeps diligently posting reviews to my little fanfic! (I assume it's the same one, but if there's more than one this is for you too!). I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I'm glad you are excited when a new chapter comes out!**

**This was my first time writing a Pokemon battle. I hope that it was clear and that it made sense. I think that gym leaders and champions like Gordie and Leon would not call out every move by their name and wait their turn for the Pokemon to attack. It's a live fight so it goes quickly, and a split decision can change who wins and loses quickly. **

**Did you know that Haxorus is the only female Pokemon on Leon's team? I didn't know that until I looked up Leon's team on Bulbapedia. Since I have Iris as Leon's cousin, it's my personal headcanon that Iris gave Leon the Haxorus as a gift at some point when Haxorus was a little Axew. Haxorus is probably the youngest member on Leon's team too. Also, the Pokedex entry for Haxorus (don't know which game or anime episode off the top of my head) says that Haxorus is a friendly Pokemon. She was super excited to meet Sarah as she heard about her from Leon, Charizard, Sesmitoad, and Aegislash and wanted to meet her. Haxorus also has a soft spot for little Pokemon and goes out of her way to make them feel comfortable around her.**

**Also, I gave more names to the coworkers, and yes, I self-inserted myself as one of them. Why not? I won't appear to much in the fic, but I thought it would be fun. I'm not sure if a copyright checker would be part of a social media team, but I could imagine with something of a massive deal like the Gym League in Galar would want to make sure that they don't end up overstepping straight into a legal issue. I hope the naming the coworkers won't throw anyone off. Sarah's going to be working with them a lot in later chapters and I wanted some names applied to the people on the social media team. **

**Raihan's here! Yay! Truth be told, I wasn't impressed by him in game, but I think us fans have done a lot to give him a personality with our headcanons. I hope that I capture Raihan in a way that makes sense to all of you. Also, we got to meet Kate! She's going to appear later as she's going to be super helpful later on considering she works at Hammerlocke's archives for a living. **

**It's sad to have Cubchoo and Snom out of the fic for now. They have been fun to write. The Cubchoo who is super sweet, but timid and the Snom who is super sassy and knows it. I'll probably bring them back later. Sarah is going to be busy and those two need to grow up a bit before they can join Sarah later in the fic. **

**The last thing I want to write about here is Looker. Why didn't GameFreak put him in the Sword and Shield games? Corrupt sports league combined with a powerful energy company seems something the Looker would want to investigate. Especially since I have set this fic in a world that has experienced the events of the other mainline games in the past two decades. The International Police is on their toes now when something slightly suspicious happens. We'll find out a little bit more about what he is investigating exactly in the next chapter.**

**I hope everyone is safe and well wherever you are! Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you want to let me know what you thought about this chapter.**


	11. International Explanations

"Mr. Looker wasn't the report the Chairman and I gave you sufficient?" asked Oleana.

Looker frowned.

"Yes, I read through it, but I would like to hear it from these two themselves," said Looker.

Oleana furrowed her eyebrows. Dr. Everton then cleared his throat before speaking

"Also, I hope I'm not interrupting, but my collogues and I are more concerned about the health of the Pokémon. I know for example that the Champion here found Grookey defending himself against multiple Sneasel before saving him."

Rillaboom, who had been watching over his grandson looked towards Leon and Sarah and walked over to them. Even though he could not speak in words, Rillaboom seemed eager to hear from Leon and Sarah too as it had a concerned look on his face and started fiddling with his wooden drumsticks nervously.

"Don't worry Rillaboom, my Charizard and I protected your grandson. He's been doing fine since then," said Leon.

"Could we get the report previously mentioned?" asked Sarah.

Chairman Rose grabbed a paper from a nearby table and reached out to hand it over to Sarah who took the report. She read it as Leon looked over her shoulder. Yes, it was about what happened to them, but told in a dry summarized manner. Nothing about the wellbeing of the Pokémon except that, "They are doing fine." Sarah wanted to roll her eyes at that as it was obvious to her that there was still some trauma they were suffering from even if they were healing physically.

"Mr. Looker, I think you want us to go more in detail on what happened, is that correct?" asked Sarah.

Looker nodded.

"Well, I will be more than willing to answer your questions," said Sarah, "What about you Leon?"

Sarah looked towards Leon, wanting him to give his consent.

"Of course, I understand that in the details you can get the information you need to care for the Pokémon," said Leon acknowledging the doctors

Leon then looked towards Looker and Leon's expression changed from being empathetic to being puzzled.

"But I'm confused about why you are here Mr. Looker. The policemen we met in Wyndon said they would investigate the situation, but it seems that this is no ordinary situation if the International Police is here."

"How insightful of you Champion of Galar," said Looker, "I was called here shortly after the arrest of the people for the abduction of these baby Pokémon. It turns out there's a smuggling ring here in Galar. Even worse, I believe it to be the work of Team Rocket."

Sarah was stunned. She remembered when she was in primary school hearing about that evil organization from Kanto focused on stealing Pokémon from anywhere and anyone. She remembered her father discussing with fury at dinner about how cruel and ruthless Team Rocket treated any human or Pokémon that stood in their way. Those dinner discussions were now a thing of the past as Team Rocket hadn't been in action for years since Champion Red took them down. Sarah then remembered something that Hau had told her that had happened to him and his friends after his island trials.

"It's not Team Rainbow Rocket, is it?" asked Sarah.

"No, it's not Ms. Char, but how do you know about Team Rainbow Rocket?" asked Looker.

"I have family from Alola, they knew the people that took down Team Rainbow Rocket," said Sarah.

"Anyone I know?" asked Looker.

"Not sure," said Sarah

Sarah wondered if Hau and his friends had to work closely with Looker to take down Team Rainbow Rocket and it was very confidential. He let it slip when she called to confirm her family was safe from Ultra Beasts attacks. He begged her to never repeat about Team Rainbow Rocket taking over the Aether Foundation to anyone. Yet Sarah was curious about whether or not the baby Pokémon were connected to that form of Team Rocket.

"Hmm…, I still would like to know their names to confirm that I can trust you," said Looker.

"You can trust her," said Leon

Sarah grabbed Leon's cape gently as he took a step forward towards Looker. Leon stopped and looked at her, and Sarah shook her head to tell him to stop. She appreciated that Leon wanted to protect her but now was not the time.

"Hau Kekoa," said Sarah.

Looker lifted one eyebrow in surprise.

"Yes, I know him. Grandson of the kahuna of Melemele. How interesting," said Looker.

"I know my cousin wasn't supposed to tell me, but it was only a sentence—"

"Your cousin is a very honest person and immediately reported to one of my colleagues. It was the only time he revealed anything, and he made sure he kept quiet after that. The presence of Team Rainbow Rocket was kept under wraps as Alola was facing a UB attacks at the time and having the evil team there just made it worse. Alola wouldn't have been able to make it through two kinds of takeovers at once. Since we heard of no spread of this information in Galar, we thought we would be fine. No point in sending more agents if no one was talking about something confidential. I just hope the rest of you can keep quiet about it. You'll all sign non-disclosure agreements before you leave."

Everyone else nodded their heads. Sarah was still suspicious why the International Police had not told the public about Team Rainbow Rocket, but she knew that it was best to not push these things. The International Police certainly had dealt with many of the evil organizations throughout various regions in the past twenty years. They should know what they were doing by now.

"Granddaughter to a kahuna," said Chairman Rose to himself before turning to Oleana, "Oleana, did you know that?"

"Grandniece actually," corrected Leon.

Looker said nothing else and Dr. Barton spoke up.

"As interesting it is to discuss the past of Alola, we need to get the information of the Pokémon now.

We need to do a health check-up on them, but we need the details of injuries, trauma, and symptoms they have experienced."

"Miss Char can help you with that Champion Leon can stay here and answer questions from the detective," said Oleana.

"Sounds good, miss," said Dr. Hill with a stutter

Leon and Sarah didn't say anything, but Marcus was already pulling a chair from the other side of the room, and the doctors and their Indeedee were quickly exiting into another room that looked like a care facility of some sort. The son of Dr. Everton followed his father with Grookey happily trailing behind him. Scorbunny and Sobble looked scared to follow him into the unknown. Rillaboom was trying to help them, but it wasn't helping as Sobble trembled and his mouth wobbled. Scorbunny hugged Sobble to prevent him from crying. Sarah walked over and scooped them up and Sarah could hear the two of them let out breaths of relief.

"Rillaboom?" said Dr. Everton peaking his head around the door, "Do you want to come with us? Or stay to hear what the champion has to say?"

"Ril-ril-rilla-boom," said the Rillaboom point towards Leon with one of his drumsticks.

"Okay, I'll just doing a check-up on your grandson and let you know about the results," said Dr. Everton, "Now don't do anything rash."

Rillaboom snorted.

"Rillaboom," warned Dr. Everton.

Rillaboom groaned but nodded his head and lumbered over to where Leon was sitting. Sarah heard a yelp of surprise as Rillaboom decided to sit on the ground next to Leon and started sniffed at his cape.

"Don't worry about your boyfriend Ms. Char, Rillaboom is just really curious about the people who saved his grandson," said Dr. Everton.

"Will he need to sniff at my jacket too?" asked Sarah.

Dr. Everton laughed.

"Oh! There's no need. Rillaboom knows that humans aren't used to sniffing each other out and does respect that. He's just curious about the cape. But trust me, Rillaboom will bring no harm to the champion," said Dr. Everton, "Rillaboom knows the rules and that we got special permission to bring him here despite not being in a Pokéball. He won't do anything to jeopardize that."

Sarah still glanced over her shoulder and saw that Leon was talking to the Rillaboom. Leon seemed to be fine talking to the grass ape and Sarah felt better following Dr. Everton into the care facility. The care facility was filled with the equipment to house a typical Pokémon Center. It was probably where students got their lab hours taking care of the Pokémon their professors trusted with them. Grookey was already sitting on one of the smalls beds playing patty cake with Dr. Everton's son.

"John Paul, could you bring Grookey to this table over here?" asked Dr. Everton.

John Paul rolled the little bed over to a shiny metal table that Dr. Everton was laying supplies on. Dr. Everton grabbed a blanket from the table and wrapped Grookey in it before he set Grookey on the table.

"A blanket is important with young Pokémon John Paul. It keeps them warm not only from the room temperature but the tables. They seem to absorb the cold." said Dr. Everton, "We need to ensure that the young Pokémon feel as comfortable as possible."

As John Paul nodded, Sarah was reminded of herself when she was younger when her father would take her to his laboratory and explain how to care for Ice type Pokémon. She was glad to see that Dr. Everton was letting his son in on his work.

"Now, what's the first step in assessing the care needs of a Pokémon?" asked Dr. Everton.

"If there's a trainer, ask the trainer about what happened. If not, have Tate figure it out for you," said John Paul.

"Indeedee," said Dr. Everton's male Indeedee whom Sarah assumed was 'Tate'.

"Good, now let's ask Ms. Char over here what happened," said Dr. Everton.

"You can call me Sarah," said Sarah.

"Okay…Sarah…what happened?" asked John Paul.

"Sorry to interrupt this educational lesson, but Dr. Hill and I want to begin checking up on Scorbunny and Sobble now too." said Dr. Barton, "Now come here."

Dr. Barton reached out for Scorbunny who swatted her hand away. Dr. Barton tried to reach out to her again, but Sarah stopped her.

"Scorbunny won't hesitate to bite when threatened. Also, you're distressing Sobble," said Sarah.

"Oh dear, I'm glad I brought my goggles," said Dr. Hill

Sobble then started to cry which resulted in everyone crying except for Dr. Hill who had put on his googles quickly.

"This is ridiculous!" wailed Dr. Barton, "Stop it!"

Sobble cried for a minute before it subdued down to a few tears. He was still sniffling after Sarah wiped down his face, but he seemed to be fine now.

"I have an idea," said Dr. Hill, "Why don't we have these two look at how Grookey gets inspected? That way they know we bring them no harm."

"That sounds like a great idea!" said Dr. Everton.

"You couldn't have mentioned it sooner?" asked Dr. Barton.

Soon Dr. Everton began his checkup on Grookey. After getting information from Sarah on what happened to Grookey, Dr. Everton began to look closely at the Grookey's fur. The scratches were healing, and blood pressure and other vitals were normal. After that Grookey was good to go. Scorbunny was up next and she hopped onto the table in front of Dr. Everton, waiting to get checked up.

"Dr. Everton if you could move aside," said Dr. Barton.

Scorbunny looked towards Dr. Everton with a pleading expression.

"Dr. Barton, you can certainly join us, but I think Scorbunny will feel better if I were to assist you," said Dr. Everton.

Dr. Barton huffed, but she agreed to let Dr. Everton stay by her. After questioning Sarah on what happened, Dr. Barton focused on examining the Scorbunny. It was hard to see what was happening, but afterward, Scorbunny seemed fine and hopped to stand next to Grookey who was on a nearby counter, waiting the whole time. Next up was Sobble. Dr. Hill kept his goggles on and put on a pair of black gloves. As Sarah set Sobble down, Sobble splayed out his legs refusing to go on the table despite there being a blanket. Dr. Hill reached out slowly and stroked Sobble's back. Sobble instantly relaxed and allowed the doctor to set him on the table.

"Woah!" said Sarah.

"It's something that mothers of little Sobbles do," said the doctor, sounding very confident.

Dr. Hill then remembered something unpleasant and grimaced. He began Sobble's check-up while speaking to Sarah, his stutter coming back. He was able though to get what happened to Sobble from her and made sure to check on Sobble's concussion which he determined that Sobble had recovered when Dr. Hill was finished there was a knock on the door. It was Marcus asking about the progress of the check-ups.

Once the doctors cleared their patients, Tate the Indeedee led Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey to the observation room with playthings that had a huge glass window separating it from the main room. They could all still see the Pokémon and it gave the humans and Rillaboom some privacy to talk amongst themselves. Detective Looker wanted to hear Sarah's perspective and after she finished Looker nodded his head and frowned even more.

"What I'm about to tell you next is what my team and I have found out so far." said Looker, "You might want to sit down from this."

Looker only waited a few moments before going into what he would say next.

"On the day the Champion and Ms. Char came back to Wyndon. The Wyndon Police Force received a call from a nearby town asking for help as a plane had crashed. Several police officers went to the scene and were overwhelmed at the plane crash. It turns out there was a lot of Pokémon on the plane, many injured and some did not survive. There was a group of Nurse Joys attending to the Pokémon. The local police also dragged out the pilot and brought him to a local clinic to attend to his wounds. The pilot was unconscious, but when he woke up, he attempted to escape. The doctors were worried and thought the pilot was confused. The local police came over later to question him as not only did he have a forged pilot's license, but that he was transferring many Galarian Pokémon that had been reported missing from nurseries and reservations. That's when they were able to get a confession from the pilot. He was smuggling out the Pokémon to Kalos where he would be paid well for the Pokémon. Unfortunately, he couldn't say much about his employer as they took great care to conceal themselves to strike a deal with him."

Chairman Rose stood up, his chair falling behind him.

"Impossible! How could this happen?!" said the Chairman.

"My team and I have concluded some of the more obvious facts Chairman," said Looker, not fazed by the Chairman's outburst, "Galar is the region with the strictest laws regarding the transportation of Pokémon. It can take months for even a well-known trainer from another region to make sure they can bring in their Gible or Rockruff during a weeklong vacation. Also, in some social circles having a Galarian Pokémon is a sign of status as it means you had the time and money to obtain one."

The doctor's expression all looked similar, first, it was shock and then rage.

"This is terrible!" shouted Dr. Hill

"We must put a stop to this!" shouted Dr. Barton.

"This is why the International Police is here in Galar now. We are doing an investigation and it turns out that this is not the first case. We have also been working with our colleagues in Kalos as they maybe track the original destination for these Pokémon. We hope to find clues to who's behind the smuggling." said Looker

"Bloody Kalosians," muttered John Paul.

Dr. Everton hugged his son.

"John Paul, not all Kalosians are evil," said Dr. Everton, "I trust that there are people who are against the kidnappings as we are."

"Dr. Everton," said Looker, "From my understanding, your son saw the people that took the Grookey away. His reactions are understandable."

Dr. Everton nodded in response and John Paul looked at the detective, trying to hold back tears.

"Are you going to make sure Grookey is never taken away from me again?" asked John Paul.

Looker nodded before kneeling before John Paul.

"I can see how shaken you are from your encounter. I will need to know more about this, but I will ask you another day. If that's alright with your father."

"Thank you, detective, for being willing to give John Paul time to speak later," said Dr. Everton.

"It's not a problem. I understand that sometimes it's best to give people space. Believe me, I know," said Looker.

Looker than got up, looking like he was somewhere else. He blinked quickly before coming back to the present and addressing the group again.

"Now, does anyone have any questions?" asked Looker.

The doctors were the first to ask Looker about the state of the Pokémon from the plane crash and what kinds they were. Looker said that besides being native the Galar, one common trait was them being able to Gigantimax.

"I don't know much about this giganto mode-"

"Gigantimax," interrupted Oleana, "It's similar to Dynamax when due to a special energy source in Galar, Pokémon briefly change forms. They grow to become on average the size of a three-story building. Gigantimax includes a complete change appearance, but that only happens most often in the final evolution stage. Only Eevee and Pikachu are the only non-final stage Pokémon to have a Gigantimax form."

"Oleana here was one of the leading scientists on Dynamxing and co-created the Dynamax band with me," explained Chairman Rose.

"I apologize for my ignorance. Thank you for the explanation," said Looker.

"You know," said Chairman Rose, "Why don't you come to the match tomorrow?"

"I'm sorry, what?" said Sarah out loud, surprised at the Chairman's sudden invitation.

Looker looked annoyed as he answered.

"I'm sorry Chairman, but now's not the appropriate time to discuss watching a battle."

Chairman Rose laughed.

"Oh sorry, I got carried away! I will talk to you later about it after all of this," said the Chairman with an easy smile.

"Detective Looker," said Sarah, "What will happen to Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey?"

"We'll bring them to their proper homes," said Dr. Barton.

Sarah felt a twinge in the heart. She was going to miss the three baby Pokémon.

"Has anyone told them that?" asked Leon.

The doctors were silent.

"Well," said Dr. Barton looking surprised, "I guess we need to do that."

Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey were then led into the room. Scorbunny rushed over to Sarah and hopped into her lap, while Sobble plodded to Leon. Grookey went to his grandfather and started to chat with him. Rillaboom explained something to Grookey which caused Grookey to shout and soon Rillaboom was shouting back. Everyone in the room become scared at the sudden change of mood. Tate the Indeedee looked towards Dr. Everton with a furrowed brow and pensive expression. Sarah assumed that Tate was using his psychic powers to act as a translator of sorts to the doctor. Dr. Everton's eyes then widened.

"Rillaboom! ENOUGH!" shouted Dr. Everton.

Rillaboom shrieked at the doctor, but with a look from Dr. Everton, Rillaboom started taking deep breaths. John Paul reached down to get Grookey out of the way, but Grookey ran to Leon instead. Sarah saw the hurt on John Paul's face and wondered what was going on.

"My Indeedee Tate has quickly explained to me what was happening," said Dr. Everton, "These three Pokémon don't want to go back to the reservation. They would like to stay with the Champion and Ms. Char."

Dr. Barton was quick to object.

"Scorbunnies haven't been under a human's care since the 50s. We can't just give them out as a prize for them being good people and taking care of them."

Tate glared at Dr. Barton and muttered something which caused Dr. Barton's Indeedee to glare back at him.

"Tate, not now," said Dr. Everton, "Dr. Barton. We must give heed to what the Pokémon need. It's obvious that they need care from the two people who have taken care of them."

"And besides," piped up Dr. Hill, "Baby Pokémon like them tend to gravitate towards someone who will be their parent. It's not a surprise they want to stay close to the couple who has made sure they are safe and healthy."

Dr. Barton frowned but then sighed.

"I see what you two mean," she said.

Dr. Barton turned towards Leon and Sarah.

"Will you promise me you will make sure Scorbunny is loved and cared for?" asked Dr. Barton.

Sarah and Leon looked at each other. Sarah was worried by this question as while she wanted to take the three Pokémon in, she was going to be on the road for months doing social media coverage. She didn't have the time to raise them. Sarah was also certain the Leon would be just as busy with training, press, and other championship responsibilities. Also, Leon was only allowed to have six Pokémon with him at a time. He could maybe add one of the baby Pokémon to his team, but then what would happen to the other two?

"Dr. Barton," said Leon, "I can't answer that question until you answer mine."

"Go on," said Dr. Barton.

"My girlfriend and I love these three a lot and would love to take care of them. Unfortunately, we are quite busy with our lives. We had help from Sarah's family, one of them who works with Pokémon daily, to take care of them. We'll be traveling for the next few months around the country due to the Gym Challenge and we won't have the time to take care of them properly. I know some trainers who'll start out on their journey this season. I'm planning on endorsing them if they can prove to me, they deserve to raise these three Pokémon."

The doctors began to murmur amongst themselves and the Chairman was quick to talk to Leon.

"You're endorsing challengers this year?! You've never done that before! Is one of them going to be your brother?"

The three Pokémon seemed to perk up at the word brother and looked at Leon expectantly.

"Yes, but he's not going to get it until he proves to me that he will be a good trainer," said Leon.

Chairman Rose smiled at him.

"Only the best for the Best family, right?" said Chairman with a chuckle.

"But Ms. Char, what do you think of all of this?" asked Oleana.

The doctors had stopped talking and had heard Oleana's question. Everyone's eyes were on Sarah for this moment. Sarah was at first angry at Leon suggesting that they give Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey away to three random trainers. She was relieved to hear that one of them would be Leon's brother as he had more of a sense of the kind of person his brother was.

"Well, Leon and I will be actually visiting them," said Sarah.

Leon nodded in agreement and reached for Sarah's hand which she took. Sarah then continued.

"Leon and I can talk with them and decide if it's a good fit with these three," said Sarah.

"If we both don't approve, I will personally take them on my team and train them," said Leon, "They witnessed a practice match between me and one of the gym leaders and seemed to enjoy it. It would be an honor to have any of them on my team."

Scorbunny, Grookey, and Sobble then shouted with excitement together as if to say, "Aye!"

"Well, I guess it's been decided," said Dr. Barton.

John Paul then left his father's side and ran out of the room quickly. Dr. Everton ran after his son and as the door closed, they could hear John Paul's wails. Rillaboom looked torn between whether to go after Dr. Everton or stay. Rillaboom opted to stay and went over to where Grookey was, softly talking to his grandson. Grookey seemed a little hesitant to talk, but then Grookey went to give his grandfather a hug. Grookey then looked at Tate and asked him a question. Sarah then heard a male voice in her head say.

"Don't worry little Grookey. John Paul is upset that you will not stay with him, but Dr. Everton is reassuring him that you will always be his friend."

Sarah realized that Tate was communicating his answer to her and maybe the rest of the people in the room through telekinesis on what was going on. Grookey hugged Tate and went to Sarah who picked him up.

"Now then," said Chairman Rose with a clap of his hands, "Let's talk about getting you to that match tomorrow Detective."

* * *

The car ride back to Leon's flat was silent. Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey were all tired out from the excitement of the day. They fell asleep on Sarah and Leon's lap as Leon began telling them about the gym challenge and the humans, he wanted to introduce to them: his brother Hop and Hop's friends Gloria and Victor. Sarah couldn't believe how quickly the three of them decided willingly to be starter Pokémon. It seemed that Grookey had the hardest time leaving as he exchanged a tearful goodbye with John Paul and Rillboom respectively. After that John Paul told Leon that Grookey better come visit them near Turffield or else Rillaboom would come after him. Leon agreed and Sarah saw Rillaboom twirling a drumstick, frowning at Leon. Rillaboom's expression though changed when he saw Sarah looking at him and he smiled. Sarah couldn't help but notice how it was similar to Grookey's own behavior. Protective concern layered over the inner sweetheart.

Sarah also still had so many questions for Leon about his brother and friends, the doctors on what they knew about these Pokémon, and even Detective Looker about the investigation. She knew she would meet Hop and his friends in two days, she got the contact info of the doctors, but Sarah wasn't sure if she and Looker would cross paths would be busy with the investigation anyway and wouldn't have the time to answer her questions wanting to know more about the investigation.

Sarah then felt Leon put his head on her shoulder and she looked down to see Leon fast asleep. She immediately felt embarrassed about what was happening and pushed Leon's head gently back up upright. Soon, Leon's head titled the other way and he leaned his head on the car window. She hoped that he wouldn't get a sore neck, but she rather not experience the moment when Leon realized he had slept on her shoulder.

Sarah then took out her phone. It was approaching eleven o'clock and she was going to go with Leon early to the stadium. Sarah rubbed her eyes as she calculated how much sleep she would get. Probably six hours if she was lucky. She checked her notifications and she was surprised to find out that she had gained a lot of followers, along with a picture that Raihan tagged her opened the link to the photo and saw that it was the one of Leon introducing his Haxorus to her. Hundreds of thousands liked the photo, but it was the caption that caught Sarah's attention: Dad introduces daughter to new girlfriend. XD

Sarah scoffed at the caption and saw two pinned comments of people who typed they thought Raihan's caption was "The Best-a new sitcom ;)" and "SO CUTE THAT A HATTERNE CAME AND KNOCKED ME OUT DUE TO EXTREME HAPPINESS!". Sarah was tempted to look at the rest of the comments, but then a notification banner popped up indicating that Piers texted her. Sarah clicked on that and read the message.

Piers: Hey, Marnie wants to know if you will be on the telly tomorrow.

Sarah grinned, Piers may not be eager for the gym challenge like he was expected to, but he was willing to support Marnie's interest in battling and also his friend's job. Sarah quickly typed in a reply.

Sarah: I will appear in the beginning to hype up the match tomorrow. I will appear at the end too, but that's just usually me reacting to reactions.

Sarah sent the text message and after a few seconds, Sarah saw that Piers was typing.

Piers: OK

Then another text message comes up.

Piers: What time are you coming on Thursday?

Sarah: Should be at three. I'll let you know if we're arriving any earlier or later from Circhester.

Piers: OK will you be staying over too?

When Sarah visited Spikemuth, she usually stayed over with Piers and Marnie as it was quite hazardous to travel from there in the evenings being so far away even from Hammerlocke or Circhester. Even though Spikemuth had seen better times at least a decade ago, Sarah always enjoyed staying the night there as that was when the city came to life with music, art, and neon lights as she spent time with some of the best people she had ever met.

Sarah: I can't. I have to work in Motostoke the next morning.

Sarah almost put down "And you do too." as Piers would also have to come to Motostoke for the opening ceremonies. Sarah then remembers that Piers hadn't gone to an opening ceremony in years because he hated doing anything he considered "extra" of being a gym leader, but Sarah was hoping he would come to this one. Sarah needed to know if she had a friend in that city with her. She decided to leave that part out of the text and wait until the interview to convince him to go to the opening ceremonies this year.

Piers: Darn. By the way, Ziggy and Jones say hello.

Piers attached a video and Sarah got out her wireless earbuds so she could listen to it without waking anyone up. It was of Ziggy, his Zizagoon, and Jones his low amped Toxtricity who were jamming out to Led Zepplin. After a few seconds, they realized Piers was filming them and got up close to the camera. Sarah could hear Piers telling them to get off and Sarah giggled behind one of her hands. It seemed to have woken up Leon though. Leon opened his eyes, looking like he needed to sleep at least ten more hours.

"Wha?" he said sleepily as he yawned.

"Sorry, I was watching something funny," said Sarah.

Sarah omitted the fact that it came from Piers. Sarah knew about Piers' opinion of Leon. On a good day, Piers would complain that the Champion smiled way too much for a normal human being. On a bad day, Leon was the poster boy of dynamaxing and the Chairman's lap dog. Sarah didn't know what Leon thought about Piers, but considering he was surprised that Sarah was friends with Piers gave her the indication that Leon didn't spend much time with the Dark-type gym leader. Then again, Piers was not the type to reveal anything about his friends even to someone as nosy and insistent as Raihan (which Sarah also heard stories about that side of Raihan from both Piers and Gordie. That man wanted to know everything!).

"Mmm, okay," said Leon.

"You can go back to sleep," said Sarah.

"It looks like we're close to home. I rather go to sleep in my bed," said Leon.

Leon then stretched and put his arm out behind Sarah. Sarah was hyper-aware of this but didn't say anything.

"Were you up late?" asked Sarah.

"I had to do league stuff with Rose," said Leon.

"At that late at night?" said Sarah.

"Something came up," said Leon.

Sarah waited for Leon to elaborate, but Leon instead started to pet Scorbunny's head.

"I'm glad they seemed okay with the Pokéballs," said Leon, "Especially since Grookey wasn't so happy when Macro Cosmos tried to do it."

"It's different when the Pokémon gets the choice," said Sarah, "My family told me that it's important to ask a Pokémon if they want to come with you. It's much easier as they are more willing to fight with you, rather than against you."

"Right," said Leon.

Marcus then stopped the car; they had arrived at Leon's flat building. Sarah put the sleeping Pokémon back into their Pokéballs. As Marcus was helping Leon out, Sarah received another text message, this time from Natasha.

Natasha: What time are you coming over tomorrow to pack up? We need to talk.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Got this chapter up! I hoped to have posted it in August, but life sometimes throws a bunch of things at you and this just got pushed to the side. **

**There's a lot going on in this chapter, but it's necessary to receive an explanation of the origin of the starter Pokemon and why Looker is in Galar. The next chapter will be of the Leon and Raihan match and soon we'll be on our way to Postwick where the game events began.**

**Let me know your thoughts in the comments!**


	12. A Match Between Raihan and Leon!

**A/N: I know some may be confused at the new numbers of chapters. I took about the huge author's note that was a chapter here. I have been meaning to take it down as it has been giving me a headache of my FFN version and my AO3 version being so different from each other. I apologize for the confusion. This is a new chapter and the chapter before this was a new one added last month.**

The sky the next morning at six was already a light purple with some pink when Sarah woke up. She was still groggy, but she managed to get herself ready fairly quickly due to her preparing everything she needed the night before. As she walked out of the room, there was light down the hallway coming from the kitchen, and heard the sound of food being cooked. When Sarah went in, she found Leon cooking himself breakfast, but noticeably without his crutches.

"Leon!" hissed Sarah.

Leon whipped his head around and put a finger to his lips. Sarah then realized that although Gordie and Jonathan were now in the room her parents had previously stayed in, they still needed to be quiet. Sarah then made sure to speak in a whisper.

"Where are your crutches?" asked Sarah.

"The nurse yesterday told me that I wouldn't be needing them by today. I'm making some breakfast; do you want some?"

Sarah looked into the pan to see a mixture of eggs, potatoes, and a variety of vegetables.

"Wow, I'm impressed."

"Thanks, Sare, would you like some?"

"A little bit, the social media team is going to be eating some bagels together, but I think I can have some of this. Can I have a small serving?"

"Of course," said Leon.

Leon then stared at Sarah a little while before clearing his throat.

"If you want tea, I have a kettle somewhere."

Sarah and Leon quickly ate the eggs and Sarah put the kettle on the stove and once the water was ready, she poured it into a thermostat with a teabag. Once that was over, Leon went to change into his champion uniform and Sarah waited for him until he came out again.

"Let's go," said Leon.

Since Leon lived so close to the stadium, the two of them decided to walk there. Due to how early it was, there were not that many people out on the street, so Sarah decided to let out Cornelius to stretch out his wings. The moment Cornelius was released, he cawed out a greeting and shook out his feathers. Sarah started scratching Cornelius under his chin.

"Good morning big bird," cooed Sarah.

Cornelius then softly tapped his beak on her head and Sarah giggled. Cornelius's red eyes then narrowed as he saw that Leon was behind Sarah.

"Cor," was all that Cornelius said to Leon, and the bird did not sound pleased to see him.

"Good morning!" said Leon with a big smile.

Cornelius looked back at Sarah as if to say, "This fool? He's still with you?" but immediately got rid of it with the stern look Sarah gave him. Cornelius, although larger and taller than Sarah, still had the utmost respect for her and knew not to make her frustrated.

"Cornelius, Leon and I are going to walk to the stadium- "

Cornelius immediately began to protest with agitated wing movements and cries once the word stadium was said, as he knew what it ultimately meant, but Sarah was able to calm him down.

"Don't worry, I'll bring Kiki out once we get there. She has been trained to help and protect me."

Cornelius nodded his head. Kiki was as sweet as an Indeedee could be but was always well trained to support and protect Sarah if the need arose.

"Good, we'll see you there. Remember, don't get in the way of any taxis!"

"Cor-vi-knight!" said Cornelius in agreement and then he took off to the skies.

Sarah and Leon then began their walk to the stadium. At the first block, Leon reached to grab her hand and Sarah took it and laced her fingers with his. She was getting more and more used to holding his hand, he had been doing that a lot more lately.

"Cornelius doesn't like me does he," said Leon.

"No! He likes you," said Sarah.

Leon shook his head.

"Sarah, you're lying. He gave me a death glare this morning," said Leon.

"Cornelius is just protective of me," said Sarah, "You should have seen Cornelius when he first met Gordie, he would constantly squawk until Gordie gave him enough "space". You know at least a few meters. Don't worry! It's a lot better now! Cornelius now feels comfortable to swipe Goride's sunglasses and tries to wear them himself. He has a playful side once he feels comfortable."

Leon chuckled at the description of a Corviknight wearing sunglasses. They reached a Pelipper Crossing and Leon pressed the button so that they could safely cross.

"Also, why doesn't Cornelius like it when you mentioned the stadium? It seems kind of odd."

Sarah froze for a moment. She debated whether or not to tell Leon the truth. She had a big fear of dynamax battles due to what happened to her when she was a challenger in Galar's Gym Challenge. Cornelius was one of the Pokémon that survived what they went through and since then Cornelius was always cautious around gym stadiums.

"Did you know Corviknights were used by nobility to guard their estates? They were also exceptional bodyguards; I think Cornelius is acting on that instinct. He also gets a little wound up if he hasn't flown in a while." said Sarah.

"Right," said Leon, but from the tone of his voice, it sounded like he didn't quite believe her.

"Cor-vi-knight!"

Cornelius called out to indicate they were close as he started to circle in the sky.

"C'mon, let's get going," said Sarah.

They turned the last corner and the stadium was already lit up brilliantly. The rose shape it took seemed picturesque as the sky was turning from pink to blue. Sarah called Cornelius back and he landed in a nearby park. Sarah brought out Kiki and returned Cornelius into his Pokéball once he saw that Kiki was there. Kiki yawned and shook her head. She smiled at Sarah and then when she saw Leon, she started chatting with excitement, pointing at his ankle.

"The nurse said that my ankle has healed up," said Leon, "I'm glad, I wouldn't want to face Raihan on the pitch today with crutches. That would've been embarrassing."

Kiki tutted but that did not wipe off the grin on her face. She walked alongside Sarah humming to herself and kept playing with the pink scarf with a white plus on it, indicating that Kiki was working, and she wouldn't be able to play with any Pokémon or human children today. As they came to the stairs, a few reporters were already there taking pictures of them. Kiki held Sarah's free hand and used a version of the Calm Mind move that helped to soothe Sarah's nerves.

"Thank you," thought Sarah, knowing that Kiki would also be using her telepathy right now.

"Of course, Sarah," thought Kiki back.

Leon and Sarah made it into the lobby where a league worker came up to them and immediately told Leon all the things, he was expected to do for the next two hours. The worker finished the list and then looked at Leon expecting him to get going to where he needed to be.

"I'll follow you, just give me a minute," said Leon.

The league worker nodded and then walked to a side door and placed himself there. Leon sighed and then turned back to look at Sarah.

"Well, good luck!" said Sarah cheerily with a smile.

"In-dee-dee!" shouted Kiki and she did a fist bump in the air.

"Thanks!" said Leon.

Sarah thought Leon was going to leave them, but then he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

"Good luck to you too," said Leon.

He then turned around and walked away, leaving a stunned Sarah. Leon had never kissed her on the cheek before and she felt very flustered.

"Sarah! Sarah Char!"

Sarah realized that someone was calling out to her and it was Katerina.

"We knew all the fuss outside meant that you and the Champion had arrived! C'mon, we got some pretty nice bagels to eat!"

* * *

The social media team was happily munching on bagels and cream cheese which made Sarah extremely full after eating eggs only less than an hour before. Despite it being the morning, most people were awake and pretty cheerful. The old-timers on the team said that it was a match day which made everyone excited for what was to come. After eating breakfast, everyone on the team got set up. For Sarah that meant going to a makeshift make-up department to get glammed up. The make-up artist cheerfully chatted with Sarah, gushing about the match, and tried to subtly ask what Leon's gameplay was. Once that was over Sarah was relieved to go.

Sarah then arrived in the press box where reporters were already setting up at tables in front of the floor to ceiling window revealing the empty stadium. Katerina spotted Sarah and quickly led her to the adjoining room where it was split into two rooms one for the live Youtube commentary done by Daisy and Dmitri and then one for Sarah herself. The room Sarah was in had a glass wall with a good view of the pitch. On the opposite side of the room, there was a camera set up along with multiple screens: one for when the newscasters were talking with her and the rest to what was going on social media about the exhibition match. As Sarah took a set on the swivel high-chair and the Rotom pad, it hit her just then that this was it. After a month of planning and prepping, she was going to do her big job.

Kiki rushed over and patted Sarah on her knee softly.

"Wow, I can't believe this is happening," said Sarah out loud.

Katerina grinned.

"It's a big day for you, I'm going to check to make sure Daisy and Dmitri are set up to go live on Youtube. I'll be back here though after that and I will be on the side if you need anything."

"Will do, thank you so much, Kat."

Kat nodded and then noticed Kiki who was wearing a pink Nurse Joy scarf around her neck.

"Sarah…I know why your Indeedee is here. Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Sarah thought for a moment. Katerina was the only one on the team that knew of Sarah's fear of dynmaxing Pokemon. When Oleana forced her to take the job, Sarah was scared as that meant that she would be exposed to dynmaxed Pokemon regularly and without warning of which ones (Oleana didn't care about this and even abrasively mentioned that Sarah would make an interesting study). Sarah did agree on the condition that she had a co-worker who knew what she was going through. That way it would be easy to steer the attention away from Sarah when she had an anxiety attack. Sarah decided that it would be Katerina after working with her this past month. Kat was the one who knew the team inside and out. and the true leader of the social media team that kept them on task and on time. Everyone trusted Kat without any doubts.

"Sure, Kat. That's nice of you. This may sound dumb, but I think I need a Tapu Koko, do you know if the stadium has-"

"I don't know, but I can check! I'll ask concessions, but if not, I can get some chocolate for you."

"Thanks, now it's okay if you don't have time."

"No, you are the face of our department and I want to make sure that you can do your best. No one wants to see you fail."

"Even Ryan?" asked Sarah.

"Even Ryan," said Katerina, "Don't worry I think he's still too starstruck from yesterday to care that you're the boss. I'll go get you a Tapu Koko."

Katerina walked to the door, but before she opened the door, she turned back to Sarah and looked at her.

"You have a lot of guts to do this job. You aren't a photographer on the field, but you have a nice view of the pitch that's right behind you. I respect you for doing this despite your fear and you can trust me to help you with whatever you need and if it's to get some chocolate, so be it."

"Thanks," said Sarah, feeling a little surprised at Katerina's determination and declaration.

"Also, what about your Indeedee? Do they want any food? They have everything from sweets, snacks, and even curry."

_Tell her that I want curry_, said Kiki telepathically to Sarah and did a motion of eating curry.

"Kiki says curry, she likes spicy ones. I'll pay you back."

"Kiki, huh? Don't worry as league members we keep a list of expenses and submit them to the financial department. It includes our food too. Okay, I better get your things, but I'll be back soon."

Katerina then walked away, and Sarah let out a sigh of relief. Kiki then started to chat happily and patted her heart. That indicated that she liked Katerina and that it was someone she approved of. Katerina was able to find a prepackaged Tapu Koko drink and a small container of spicy curry. Sarah was thankful to have a familiar drink. Even though it wasn't her grandmother's homemade recipe, it still brought the comfort she needed. Sarah then became busy with looking at every social media platform and related hashtags. She would get a list of posts that she would read and talk about with the newscasters, but she still wanted to be on the know.

There were not many updates happening as it was not even noon yet and the match was not until later in the evening. Sarah then decided to look for anything related to Leon as she was sure they would bring him up a lot. Sarah was surprised to see that the thing that came up was pictures of her and Leon from this morning. She didn't stay long looking at that because wow, she looked exhausted. The posts then turned into fan accounts and official league update accounts detailing what the Champion was doing today. Leon was set up with a pre-match interview, a photoshoot, and a special meet and great for children from Wyndon's children's hospital.

There were a lot of posts about the meet and greet. Sarah knew that these were genuinely heartwarming to see how excited kids were to meet someone famous. Many of the posts were from the parents who took pictures and videos of Leon and also Raihan who was there too. The kids seemed to find them hilarious and loveable. One post in particular caught Sarah's attention as it was one that Leon commented on.

In the picture, Leon was crouched down to the eye level of a young boy with blonde hair who couldn't be more than eleven years old. The young boy was in the middle of laughing as Leon was talking with him. Leon looked so relaxed and carefree. Sarah then read the caption:

_My son John is a big fan of the Champion. Last year, the Champion gave John his biggest wish, to see him play a match in person. (Seeing John on the pitch gave me a heart attack!) I thought that this would be the last we would hear from Leon. Then last week after a month of John being home from the hospital, we received a letter from the Champion himself inviting him to his meet and greet. I get weepy just thinking about how this busy man took his time to reach out to my son and remember him from the match over a year ago._

_Thank you, Leon, for being my son's inspiration and hope during some of the most trying times in his life. I already know that he's going to be happy for days because of this meet and greet, and that's truly the best gift a parent could ask for._

The post was increasing in likes by the hundreds and so were the comments. Sarah even found one from Leon that said: It's always a pleasure to see John. He is a brilliant kid and I know he is going to be an amazing trainer. I look forward to the day when I can battle him on the pitch!

Sarah found herself feeling emotional over this post and comment. It was amazingly kind of Leon to have John on the pitch during his battle and to invite the boy to see him again. Sarah felt some pride at how Leon didn't forget about this boy who looked up to him so much. That's when Katerina came back with Sarah's lunch and Sarah soon was distracted by Katerina's amusing commentary on a group of Raihan fans who all had a Trapinch dressed in a hoodie similar to Raihan's signature hoodie

Soon after that Sarah was busy checking the league's social media accounts and going over the rundown of them with the newscasters. After all of the work, the sun had completely crossed the sky and was beginning to set. People were filling the stadium quickly and an exciting cacophony of noise grew louder and louder. Sarah could feel her heart start to pump, excited to see the battle, but nervous about when the dynamaxing was going to happen. She stroked Kiki's head and Kiki let did the Calm Mind move again. Sarah started to follow the deep breathing that Kiki was doing which helped to ease Sarah. She then reminded herself what she could control instead of the wild card of a dynmaxed Pokémon.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Are you ready for a match tonight?"

The crowd cheered at the announcement, and Sarah got off her chair to get closer to the window. Chairman Rose had come onto the pitch and was giving some grand speech about Pokémon and how amazing they are. After he finished, Chairman Rose said, "And tonight we will see the greatest example of the bond between Pokémon and trainer!", and then the music kicked it. It was "We Will Rock You" by Queen. Soon the whole stadium was stomping along, and Sarah, Katerina, and Kiki joined them too. They laughed together become they felt silly doing it, but it was fun.

"We will! We will rock you!"

The guitar solo then kicked in and small fireworks went off on the pitch, created a pillar of smoke. And just when the guitar let out a loud chord, the smoke cleared enough so that they could see Leon on the big jumbotron screen. The crowd went wild as the camera panned over Leon, even when it took some time to show off his healed ankle. It then panned up to his face and he looked straight at the camera. Sarah heard some squeals below to see a group of young women freaking out Leon looking at "them". Then another song came over the speaker, this time it was "Blinding Lights" by the Weeknd. Just like Leon's entrance, this one was timed so that the main musical melody kicked in when Raihan stepped onto the pitch, his Duralodon stomping behind him. Raihan waved at the crowds in one hand and had his Rotom phone in the other, he reached to the center of the pitch and then the music faded away, leaving the two rivals and their Pokémon out.

"Exhibition or not, Leon, your pristine record is about to end–when I beat you here today!" shouted Raihan, his voice amplified by the microphone boomed across the stadium.

Leon smirked.

"You know I don't lose battles, Raihan! Charizard, dynamax!"

Sarah was surprised when Charizard started to dynamax on command without the need to go back into a Pokéball. As Charizard grew in size his wings began to slowly change from flesh into raging fire wings. Kiki grabbed Sarah's hand and squeezed it for reassurance. Sarah kept reminding herself that she had met Charizard and that Charizard would never hurt her. She kept repeating this over and over again in her mind. The crowd cheered and applauded as the gigantimaxed Charizard roared, but Sarah just stared at the monster that took the second half of the stadium.

_Leon's going to be alright._

Sarah turned to Kiki who was looking at her with concern and realized that Kiki was using her telepathy again.

"Um, yes," said Sarah wondering why Kiki needed to say that.

Kiki just smiled at her reassuringly.

Raihan then brought his Duralodon back into his Pokéball and was beginning the dynamaxed process. Sarah then could feel her anxiety rise as Raihan released his Pokémon who became a skyscraper. Sarah winced as she tried to block out the painful recollection in her head.

* * *

_An Alolan Vulpix, whose cuts and bruises were very apparent with brown dirt and red blood mixed into his snow-white fur. He shook as the dynamax energy began to wane, frosty participles flying everywhere in the air. With one last burst of energy, the Alolan Vulpix leaped and crashed into the gigantimax Duralodon. Both Pokémons' cries of pain and suffering echoed throughout the cave, barely covering up Sarah's screams and the wails of the rest of her Pokémon, too injured to even help._

* * *

"Sarah! Sarah! Is she going to be alright?"

Sarah was then brought back to the present just at the moment when Durladon fainted and Charizard shrunk back into normal size. Sarah then put a hand over her chest as her heartbeat slowed down. Kiki hugged her tight, letting out a Calm Mind which helped immensely. Katerina was also there besides Sarah, looking very concerned as she gave soft pats on her backs.

"Your Indeedee showed me this would help, I hope you don't mind," said Katerina.

"No, it's fine," said Sarah her voice barely above a whisper.

By the end of the match, Sarah got her bearings together so that when she appeared back on the TV, she was back to her normal self. No one would know how she had a panic attack at the sight of a gigantimaxed Durlaodon. After spending 30 minutes on TV reacting to social media posts, the camerawoman switched off the camera and began packing up. Katerina and Sarah exited the room, but before they stepped out Sarah recalled Kiki back into her ball and praised her for her good work today.

"So, does this happen every time? Your cousin is a gym leader who does dynmax his Pokémon," said Katerina as they made their way to a meeting room to debrief with the social media team.

"This was probably the worst," said Sarah, "I was trapped with a wild gigantimax Durladon years ago, and seeing one again was why I broke down."

Katerina nodded.

"Okay, so it wasn't the Charizard, but Durladon," she said.

Sarah could have corrected Katerina and said that while this was true, Sarah had some other Pokémon she was afraid of to see go gigantic, but didn't tell her.

"I don't know if you know this, but your health insurance does cover therapy if you need someone to talk about it." said Katerina, "I could help too, but I don't know how to help you address your fear."

Sarah nodded. If Sarah could talk to a therapist about this she would, but then it would bring up the matter why she did not talk to a therapist earlier and she couldn't legally say why thanks to Marco Cosmos. That was the end of their conservation as Sarah and Katerina came into the room. Everyone was in such good spirits that Sarah soon forgot about her conversation with Katerina. The team began posting, editing, and checking social media at a rapid pace. This exhibition match was the most-watched and streamed thing of this year. Daisy and Dmitri were extra busy as their fans were discussing the live commentary they gave of the match and discussing which clips they should share on their social media. A league worker came in to announce that the post-game interviews of Raihan and Leon were almost ready to be filmed. Sarah, along with a few other team members went to the lobby where makeshift walls were already made on opposite sides of the room. The first would be Raihan as he was the one who lost the match while Leon would be the second to be interviewed.

Raihan's interview went well. It seemed that he took the defeat well and answered the reporters' questions. One of the reporters tried to ask Raihan if his friendship with Leon was affected by this loss and Raihan quipped, "We have been best friends since we were ten and are still able to make it work. It's called love and also a lot of communication." The social media team was quick to post that quote on their story. Raihan always seemed to be the best public speaker out of all of the gym leaders. When finished, Raihan left to go back to the locker rooms.

A minute later, Leon came striding out of the same door Raihan entered. The cameras and lights going off was blinding to the eyes and hard on the ears. This was even more so when Leon after looking around found Sarah in the crowd and called out her name. Oleana had requested the day before that Leon and Sarah show a "couple moment" after Leon's victory in the exhibition match. Sarah had no idea what to expect as Leon came over to her with the reporters parting to make way for him. Sarah then was wrapped in a hug and then picked off the ground and swung around. She clung to Leon in surprise and hoped that he didn't drop her, but he seemed to have a stronghold on her.

"I did it, Sare! I won! I won!"

"Of course, you did," said Sarah as Leon set her down gently.

The two of them stared at each other and Leon then moved closer to her until a reporter called out.

"Geez, when is this interview going to start?"

Much to Sarah's surprise, the rest of the reporters weren't happy about this interruption. Many of them were talking about how their colleague "ruined the moment". Leon then shrugged his shoulders and then leaned in to whisper in her ear.

"Will you wait for me after this?"

Sarah nodded feeling unnerved at how close Leon's face was to hers. She could move her head and kiss him if she-

Sarah then stopped that train of thought as she caught Leon saying to text him when she was done and squeezed her hand before turning around. When Sarah turned to look at her team, they looked very amused and happy.

"Guys, c'mon! Let's make sure to get the best posts out of this interview alright?"

Sarah's words seemed to cause her co-worker to shake out of their happy distracted looks and onto their job.

"Mr. Best," said one of the reporters, "How did it feel to know that your girlfriend was watching and commentating on you battling?"

Sarah sighed, this was going to be a long one for her.

* * *

Everyone else on the social media team had left and Sarah texted Leon that she was done. Leon told her that he was in the locker rooms and that if she could meet him just outside of them that would be great. As Sarah began to walk down to the lobby, she realized then that she didn't know how exactly she could get to the locker rooms. She spotted a lone League worker at the desk who gave her directions. Sarah then found her way to the doors to the locker room and decided to wait outside as Leon said. As she took out her phone to look at some unanswered texts, she could hear a booming voice from the locker room.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! GIGANTIMAXING SO EARLY?!"

Sarah dropped her phone in surprise as she heard Chairman Rose's voice from the locker room. The Rotom in her phone stopped itself from falling in the ground and let out a noise of annoyance, Sarah quietly apologized and went back to listening to what was being said in the locker room.

"I decided it would be fun to do."

That was Leon's voice. Sarah crept closer to the door wanting to know what was going on.

"Fun? Oh, Leon, I know you love to play and train, but it could've gone SO badly!"

"But it didn't!" said Leon.

"But what if it did? You Sesmitoad was taken out to early due to a lucky critical hit of an Absorb from a Goodra! It completely threw you off guard!" said the Chairman, "You promised you could deliver your best, better than what was done in the past, but the league will be concerned. You know what I need to do-"

"No! I won tonight and will win again, fair and square" said Leon, "Can we discuss this later? Sarah's waiting for me outside the locker room."

Sarah then heard a pair of shoes walking close to the door, so Sarah scrambled away from it, grabbed her phone, and opened to a random app. She pretended to be engrossed in her photos when Oleanna exited the locker room.

"It looks like the girl is here as the Champion said she would be," said Oleana in a bored tone.

"Oh! Well tell her to come in!" said the Chairman, sounding cheerful.

Oleana glared at Sarah which Sarah took to meant that she needed to hurry up. When Sarah entered the locker room, she spotted a Chairman looking very jolly, and Leon who looked like he was trying to keep himself calm before he exploded.

"Ah! Sarah! What did you think of the match? It was quite nerve-wracking with how close it was," said the Chairman.

Sarah smiled, hoping it did not come off at a grimace. If she hadn't overheard the Chariman's heated words from before, she wouldn't have realized that the words were supposed to be a jab at Leon.

"Yes, indeed, but that's what makes it so exciting!" said Sarah, "Leon and Raihan are true rivals that match each other in skill!"

Sarah then went over the Leon and watched the Chairman's smile falter a bit at Sarah's statement.

"Ho ho! Keen observation, but there's always a reason why there's one champion. You mustn't put the champion on the same level as a gym leader," said the Chairman, "After all Leon's undefeated and he has quite the reputation to uphold with that."

At this point, Oleana stepped in and told the Chairman it was time to go.

"Is it that late already? Well, I guess it's time to say goodbye. I wish you too safe travels to Postwick. Say hello to the family for me."

The Chairman and Oleana walked away, leaving Sarah and Leon in silence. Sarah looked at Leon who had his fists clenched and staring angrily at the door.

"Leon-"

"I'm fine!" said Leon, "I don't want to talk about it."

Leon's harsh tone made Sarah flinched.

"Okay, I'm sorry," said Sarah.

Leon then stopped glaring and his expression softened.

"It's not your fault," said Leon, "You just caught me having a small argument with my boss."

Sarah nodded and Leon sighed.

"Look, I promise that I'm not mad at you. I-"

"I know," said Sarah, "I had the worst timing. I think we need to go home and get some rest for tomorrow. "

"Agreed, I don't want to be a complete Snorlax when I'm with my family."

"You mean where they sleep the whole day or when they eat everything in sight?"

Leon gave a small smile.

"Cheeky," said Leon, "Now, didn't you want to pick up stuff from your flat before we go back to mine?

**A/N: Only two days after the end of September and I posted this up! In this chapter, I finally got** **all of the secrets I have been wanting to write about, especially about Sarah's fear of dynamaxed Pokemon. It will be revealed later what exactly happened. I guess except what Rose and Leon were exactly arguing about, but now that everything's been put into place I don't have to exactly keep foreshadowing so much anymore.**

**Good news is the next chapter, we will be in Postwick! Took months to get here but woohoo! I am excited to get into the game's story officially now! **


End file.
